Elon Musk, Tesla CEO and SpaceX founder, teased a possible Twitter competitor if he isn’t forced to go through with the $44 billion deal.
Amid his ongoing legal battle against Twitter, Elon Musk teased a potential social media site of his own as a competitor for Twitter. While responding to a question from one of his followers, Musk dropped a cryptic tweet, hinting at a potential new social media platform ‘X.com’.
On Tuesday, a social media user asked the billionaire tech tycoon whether he had given any thought to creating his own social platform.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 10, 2022
The comment came after it was revealed that the billionaire had sold 7.92 million Tesla shares worth $6.9 billion ahead of the very real chance he could be forced to purchase Twitter.
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
Musk, who formerly made a proposal to buy the social media company at $44 billion, argues that Twitter’s disclosed number of false or spam accounts is inaccurate — possibly numbering as high as 33% rather than Twitter’s reported 5%.
According to Business Insider, Musk co-founded X.com as an online bank in 1999, which merged with Confinity in the following year to become PayPal. In 2017, Musk purchased the domain name from PayPal while citing “sentimental value.” The site currently shows nothing more than a small black “X” in the corner of the page.
In a recent shareholder meeting for Tesla, Musk reportedly referenced X.com, Business Insider noted in its report.
“I do sort of have a grander vision for what I thought X Corporation could have been back in the day,” Musk said. “It’s a pretty grand vision and of course that could be started from scratch but I think Twitter would accelerate that by three to five years.”
The Daily Wire reported:
Musk, the world’s richest man, has said that he does not “care about the economics” of the potential Twitter acquisition “at all,” repeatedly citing the need to address the lack of free expression on the platform.
“It’s important to the function of democracy, it’s important to the function of the United States as a free country and many other countries, and to help freedom in the world more broadly than in the U.S.,” Musk said. “Civilizational risk is decreased the more we can increase the trust of Twitter as a public platform, and so I do think this will be somewhat painful.”
The trial to determine the outcome of the acquisition deal is scheduled for October.
In a recent earnings report Twitter argued, which pinned a loss of $0.08 per share on the proceedings with Musk:
“Adoption of the merger agreement by our stockholders is the only remaining approval or regulatory condition to completing the merger under the merger agreement. The exact timing of completion of the merger, if at all, cannot be predicted because the merger is subject to ongoing litigation, adoption of the merger agreement by our stockholders and the satisfaction of the remaining closing conditions.”
In a July 8 letter, Musk’s attorneys said that Twitter has neglected to provide accurate information about its user base.
“Mr. Musk and his financial advisors at Morgan Stanley have been requesting critical information from Twitter as far back as May 9, 2022 — and repeatedly since then — on the relationship between Twitter’s disclosed mDAU figures and the prevalence of false or spam accounts on the platform,” the letter said. “Notwithstanding these repeated requests over the past two months, Twitter has still failed to provide much of the data and information responsive to Mr. Musk’s repeated requests.”
Like most stories involving Musk, this one is likely to develop.
Sources: DailyWire, Business Insider
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