A thrilling tale told in tweets: The Musk-Twitter saga

The most blockbuster deal of recent times, the Musk-Twitter deal reached its finale on Friday with Tesla chief coming out at the helm of the social media giant. It was nothing less than a dramatic television series. With the twists, turns, u-turns, a pinch of courtroom drama, it was definitely an action-packed one. It all started on Twitter, rolled out on Twitter and ended on Twitter. Here are all the tweets that marked milestones in the USD 44 billion worth deal

It all started in April when the Tesla boss revealed his majority stake in Twitter and became its majority shareholder. The Twitter board discussed then discussed the possibilities and invited Musk to be on the board. 

On April 5, Twitter’s then CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted

I’m excited to share that we’re appointing @elonmusk to our board! Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.

— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 5, 2022

I’m excited to share that we’re appointing @elonmusk to our board! Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.

— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 5, 2022

Then, Musk began his due diligence.

Most of these “top” accounts tweet rarely and post very little content.

Is Twitter dying? https://t.co/lj9rRXfDHE

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 9, 2022

Musk changed his mind and Agrawal took Twitter to confirm it.

Elon has decided not to join our board. I sent a brief note to the company, sharing with you all here. pic.twitter.com/lfrXACavvk

— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 11, 2022

The world’s richest man moves to buy Twitter instead.

Taking Twitter private at $54.20 should be up to shareholders, not the board

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2022

With initial resistance from company board and adoption of ‘poison pill,’ Musk and Twitter finally reached agreement, Twitter chairman Bret Taylor confirmed.

 

The Twitter Board has reached an agreement with @ElonMusk https://t.co/CCZ6IV6Q7P

— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) April 25, 2022

Musk moves on to devise a plan for Twitter indicating towards reversal of life bans that have been imposed on some users. He advocates for free speech.

For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 27, 2022

The world’s richest man came up with plans that he wants to implement post acquiring the microblogging site.

If Twitter acquisition completes, company will be super focused on hardcore software engineering, design, infosec & server hardware https://t.co/m2HseK0TXl

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 6, 2022

And then came a doubt…

If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 21, 2022

And, then a u-turn!

Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of usershttps://t.co/Y2t0QMuuyn

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 13, 2022

Musk expressed his contention and ended up violating an NDA.

Any sensible random sampling process is fine. If many people independently get similar results for % of fake/spam/duplicate accounts, that will be telling.

I picked 100 as the sample size number, because that is what Twitter uses to calculate <5% fake/spam/duplicate.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 14, 2022

Twitter’s Parag Agrawal gave a reply backed with figures and reasoning...

Unfortunately, we don’t believe that this specific estimation can be performed externally, given the critical need to use both public and private information (which we can’t share). Externally, it’s not even possible to know which accounts are counted as mDAUs on any given day.

— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) May 16, 2022

But, Musk didn’t seem to agree or believe.

💩

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 16, 2022

As Musk’s intention to abandon the deal became clear, the Twitter board moved to the court.

The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) July 8, 2022

Tesla boss thought that he will get away with the deal.... 

Yes.

In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close *and* some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock.

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 10, 2022

And, then came another u-turn

Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app

Advertisement

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 4, 2022

With a deadline set by court, the deal moves forward. Musk changed his bio to ‘Chief Twit’ and posted a video of him carrying a sink

Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022

Musk also tweeted a letter to Twitter’s advertisers, confirming the speculations around completion of the takeover.

Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022

And finally...

the bird is freed

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022

🎶 let the good times roll 🎶

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022

This marked the end of the saga or is it just end of season 1? But this definitely marks the start of a new era.