Elon Musk has good lawyers – the fact he won a defamation case brought against him by a British cave diver who he called “pedo guy” on Twitter is proof of that.
Musk will need those lawyers to be at their best, now that Twitter is suing him for backing out of a $44 billion (€43.8 billion) takeover deal.
Back in April, Musk boasted about making Twitter better and “defeating the spam bots”, only to then complain he needed more information regarding the extent of the problem.
[ Twitter hires US law firm Wachtell to sue Elon Musk for ending €43bn takeoverOpens in new window ]
As Bloomberg’s Matt Levine points out, Musk went from saying he wanted to buy Twitter to sort out the bot problem, to saying he wanted to get out of the deal over the bot problem. It’s hard to take this seriously.
‘Whenever he scored the place was jumping’: Swatragh out in force to watch Derry’s Jude McAtamney make NFL debut
The unravelling of a housing minister: Eoghan Murphy opens up about sleeping pills, manic running, anxiety and tears
Paul Costelloe and Niamh Gillespie deliver casual, easy elegance in menswear with their new collections
A trip on one of world’s most beautiful railways highlights Norway’s uneasy climate compromises
Might a deal yet be done, with Musk eventually negotiating a lower price? Will he pay a fine and settle the matter out of court? Hopefully not.
Takeover agreements are meant to be binding, not something to be casually abandoned. To quote from the Twitter lawsuit, Musk apparently feels “free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away”. That’s not on, and Musk should pay a heavy price.