Even before Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is official, a report reveals plans that will see him lay off well over half of his employees.
Update from Friday, October 21, 10:53 a.m .: The Twitter takeover by Elon Musk is imminent. However, the deal is not done yet. As the Washington Post now reports, Musk plans to massively reduce the number of employees after the purchase. Of the currently around 7,500 employees, only 2,000 should keep their jobs. The report relies on insiders and confidential documents.
Sean Edgett, Twitter’s chief legal officer, then wrote a circular to the nervous workforce, which was seen by financial service Bloomberg. Accordingly, one should only rely on official information. Unconfirmed information and rumors should be ignored as much as possible. The situation is opaque. As before, Musk has until October 28 to complete the purchase of Twitter. On the sidelines of Tesla’s quarterly earnings release last Wednesday, Musk underscored that Twitter had “incredible potential.” Still, he said it was “obvious” that he and the investors would still overpay for the online news service.
Process postponed: Elon Musk gets more time for Twitter purchase
Update from Friday, October 7th, 10 a.m.: The legal dispute between tech billionaire Elon Musk and Twitter could be extended. The court case was stayed by the competent judge until October 28. If the Tesla boss has not completed the roughly $44 billion takeover of the short message service by then, the parties to the dispute will have to prepare for a trial in November.
The start of the trial scheduled for October 17 is therefore off the table. Musk, who wanted to get out of the deal for months, surprisingly confirmed his original offer for Twitter on Tuesday. In doing so, he paved the way for a spectacular turnaround in the takeover dispute. But it has already become clear that the distrust on Twitter’s side runs deep and the online service no longer wants to take any risks.
Musk and Twitter are still bickering over key details that need to be clarified in order to close the deal. The billionaire’s lawyers on Thursday moved to have the case halted and the trial dismissed. Twitter immediately submitted a counter-motion in which the company clearly denied this. The judge then set a deadline for the parties to the dispute to clarify the differences.
Surprising turnaround: Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter after all
First report from Tuesday, October 4th, 10:06 p.m.: San Francisco – This is a surprise. Tech billionaire Elon Musk now wants to complete the multi-billion takeover of the online service Twitter. The Tesla boss confirmed this on Tuesday in a mandatory notification to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In this way, the legal dispute over the billion-euro deal could be avoided shortly before the eagerly awaited court case.
In a letter, Musk suggested that the deal be completed at the originally agreed purchase price of $54.20 per share, his lawyers said, confirming a report by the Bloomberg financial service. This marks a spectacular turning point in the conflict surrounding the takeover, which cost around 44 billion dollars. A statement from Twitter was initially not available.
Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter – and then decides differently
Musk actually voided the April purchase agreement in July because Twitter allegedly misrepresented the number of fake accounts on its platform. However, the company insisted on compliance with the purchase agreement and went to court. The process is actually supposed to start in October to clarify whether Musk can withdraw from the takeover.
The reasons for Musk’s rethinking remained unclear for the time being. Many experts assessed his chances in the court case as unfavorable from the start. For months, Musk tried to portray allegedly false information from Twitter about the number of spam and fake accounts as a breach of the takeover agreements. But whether that would be enough in court is doubtful.
Musk wanted Twitter’s offer to be invalidated
In August, Musk came up with new arguments in an attempt to call off the multi-billion dollar takeover of Twitter. The Tesla boss brought up allegations by a whistleblower who accused Twitter of, among other things, a lack of protection of user data and other security weaknesses. Because of these “outrageous” flaws, Musk’s purchase offer for Twitter was to be classified as invalid, his lawyers wrote to the company at the time. (msb/dpa)
