Good evening
The countdown is on in Delaware as a court-imposed deadline looms for Tesla founder Elon Musk to buy Twitter for $44 billion.
Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick set a Friday night deadline for Musk to complete the deal after the billionaire dropped efforts to back out of the earlier agreement. Earlier arguments from the Musk camp to move the trial to early 2023 fell on deaf ears.
McCormick later gave Musk a couple of weeks to complete the buyout.
While signs seem to point to the world’s richest man completing the deal by the deadline, nothing is certain when it comes to a guy whose companies sell 900,000 electric vehicles a year and launch humans into orbit.
This piece from Bloomberg columnist Matt Levine offers an array of pre and post-buyout possibilities, many of which could end up in Chancery Court, even if the deal is completed.
In the meantime, there’s a report that once Musk takes control of Twitter, he will cut three-fourths of its staff. Musk says Twitter will become a forum for free speech and will solve any bot problem. But with a skeleton staff and few guard rails, would Twitter be vulnerable to hackers and other lowlifes?
Lurking in the background are other questions, such as when Musk would bring Donald Trump back to Twitter after the post-election ban. Trump has his own platform Truth Social, which has a much smaller audience than Twitter. Musk and Trump have a long-running feud that has been in a quiet phase in recent months.
Then there’s rapper Kanye West who has amassed a $1 billion fortune and plans to acquire Twitter rival Parler. Musk recently tweeted out an image of himself, Kanye (now known as Ye), and Trump. The image (since deleted) was vintage Musk, who loves to stir the pot.
On a more serious note, Musk has been focusing on the War in Ukraine and whether his Starlink satellite communications service in that nation will get reimbursement from the U.S. government.
Musk has also called for peace talks that would allow Russia to keep Crimea, which was seized from Ukraine in a 2014 invasion. Ukraine was not pleased.
The situation has led to speculation that a Twitter buyout might face federal scrutiny, especially if Musk is found to be cozying up to the Kremlin. Musk denies that he has talked with Russian President Putin since the invasion took place.
If you are curious about the latest twists and turns in this tale, check out Chancery Daily’s Twitter feed. – Doug Rainey, chief content officer.
