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Elon Musk Terminates Twitter Merger Agreement

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OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.


Tesla CEO Elon Musk had terminated his agreement to purchase Twitter.

Musk announced late on Friday that his advisers on Friday sent a letter to Twitter formally notifying the social company that he is terminating the merger agreement, Bloomberg News reports.

“For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,” Musk’s team writes. “Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information.”

It was reported earlier on Friday that Musk‘s $44 billion bid to purchase Twitter was in “serious jeopardy.”

A new report reveals that Musk is reviewing his options after his team accused Twitter of not disclosing enough information about bot and spam accounts on the platform.

“Musk’s deal to buy Twitter is in serious jeopardy,” the Washington Post reported, saying Musk’s team has stopped engaging in discussions with investors about the funding because they believe the spam figures provided by the company are not verifiable.

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Musk’s team is seeking information on the true number of active daily users on Twitter but apparently, the social media platform is not providing enough information.

Musk’s team is poised to take “potentially drastic action,” the report said.

Twitter announced on Thursday that it had cut roughly 30% of its talent acquisition team amid the potential Musk takeover.

Last month, Twitter’s board “unanimously recommended” that its shareholders vote to approve Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the social media company.

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The board of directors unanimously recommended that its shareholders take the deal that Musk offered.

“The Twitter Board, after considering various factors described in the section of this proxy statement captioned “The Merger— Recommendation of the Twitter Board and Reasons for the Merger,” has unanimously: (1) determined that the merger agreement is advisable and the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement are fair to, advisable and in the best interests of Twitter and its stockholders; and (2) adopted and approved the merger,” it said.

During an interview, Musk tore into the Unions “stranglehold” on the Democrat party and called it “next-level insanity.”

Musk took the opportunity to explain his feelings about the Democratic Party, their relationship with labor Unions, and Tesla’s exclusion from a White House electric vehicles event because the company is not unionized.

Musk took particular issue with the Democratic Party’s strong relationship with Union leadership.

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“The general public is not aware of the degree to which unions control the Democratic Party. One does not need to speculate on this point,” he said.

“Last year, Biden held an EV summit where Tesla was explicitly not allowed to come, but the [United Auto Workers] was. So, Tesla has made two-thirds of all the electric vehicles in the United States,” he added.

In May, Musk appeared on a podcast where he made some of the same points and gave his opinion on who he believes the “real president” is.

“The real president is whoever controls the teleprompter,” he said. “The path to power is the path to the teleprompter.”

“I do feel like if somebody were to accidentally lean on the teleprompter, it’s going to be like Anchorman,” he said, which is a reference to the 2004 film in which Ron Burgundy, played by actor Will Ferrell, reads anything that is written on the teleprompter.

He said that he has voted “overwhelmingly for Democrats,” but he does not appear to be a fan of the current administration.

“This administration doesn’t seem to get a lot done,” he said. “The Trump administration, leaving Trump aside, there were a lot of people in the administration who were effective at getting things done.”

He said he believes that the Democratic Party is “overly controlled by the unions and by the trial lawyers, particularly the class-action lawyers.” He said that when Democrats go against “the interests of the people,” it is because of unions and trial lawyers, and when Republicans do it, “it’s because of corporate evil and religious zealotry.”

“In the case of Biden, he is simply too much captured by the unions, which was not the case with Obama,” he said.

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