In recklessly ending his own bid to acquire Twitter, Musk once again sends a message: I play by my rules.
Where to start?
At this hour, the whole world is aware that Elon Musk, the richest man in the world, does not want Twitter anymore. The famous platform has been bluntly repudiated. The vocabulary used to brutally put an end to this eventful engagement could not be clearer:
“Mr. Musk is terminating the merger agreement because Twitter is in material breach of multiple provisions of that agreement” Musk’s lawyers wrote in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
In addition Twitter (TWTR) – Get Twitter Inc. Report “appears to have made false and misleading representations” about fake accounts or spam bots.
Twitter has given Musk a date in court.
In the meantime, Musk’s detractors are jubilant, mainly those who dreaded his vision of a Twitter where anyone can say what they want as long as it doesn’t break the law of the country in which they speak, brings back the bullying, misinformation and racist and hate speech.
But there are also those (mostly in the progressive part of the Democratic party) who take the opportunity to say that this episode is proof that Musk is dangerous and autocratic.
Elon ‘Hulk’ Musk
To summarize, this temporary but nevertheless spectacular denouement of the $44 billion Twitter saga is an occasion for many people to ask the question: Who is Elon Musk and what exactly does he want?
A history of Musk posts on Twitter shows the billionaire and Tesla (TSLA) – Get Tesla Inc. Report CEO must be taken as he presents himself. Do not try to analyze him because there is nothing to analyze. Musk describes himself as the superhero character, Bruce Banner, in the Marvel Comics’ universe, who, when angry, transforms into the Hulk, the Jade Giant. Hulk has multiple personalities.
The bottom line is that Musk doesn’t want to play by the rules which have been written for everyone. He decided to rewrite these rules to suit him. And when they don’t suit him, he writes new ones. The Twitter saga is the perfect example.
The mogul decided to make a splash because his millions of fans on the social network were asking him to do something about this platform which, according to them, violated their free speech right. In doing so, he completely ignored the basics of M&A transactions: doing prior due diligence. Musk seemed to think his past success warranted his stepping on the ground rules.
And as if that weren’t enough, he engaged in a public tussle to force Twitter’s management to accept his offer. Second rule trampled. Generally, negotiations on this type of transaction take place behind the scenes and, if necessary, there are leaks in the media when one of the parties feels that it has run out of arguments.
Musk Doing Musk
But that was Musk doing Musk, in other words playing by his own rules. Have to say it worked. So if it worked once, why not try again. When Musk realized that Twitter was going to cost him a lot of money personally, he decided to end the party. Even for someone worth $227 billion on July 8, according to Bloomberg Billionaires Index, $44 billion is a lot of money, especially when you have to get into personal debt as it must have been the case here.
And as often, Musk decided to rewrite the rules on how to end a deal. As a reminder, these new rules only apply to Musk and no one else. To begin, you have to start by accusing the other party of bad faith; then highlight a problem, certainly well known, likely to resonate with the general public. In the case of Twitter, these are the fake accounts or spam bots. An annoying problem for anyone using Twitter and a concern for advertisers looking to target a specific audience.
We must not forget that what matters to Musk is to forge a direct link with the “people”, the people who admire him and from whom he thinks he derives his legitimacy. Musk has nearly 101 million Twitter followers. There are only four personalities who do better: Barack Obama, Justin Bieber, Katy Perry and Rihanna.
For several weeks, therefore, he repeated that Twitter was lying about the number of fake accounts on the platform. He threatened to terminate the transaction. Some thought that he was joking or that he was using this to get Twitter to lower the price. But for him it was a way of preparing minds for the inevitable: his withdrawal.
Maybe now is the time to take Musk at his own words. What the Twitter saga tells us is that Musk, as touchy, stormy and megalomaniac as he appears, is what he shows us. You don’t have to look for a guide book to understand him. He delivers the guide book himself. He should be taken at face value. If we had accepted this simplistic approach, the abrupt end of his bid on a Friday evening, when the financial markets have closed and everyone is getting ready to put on their weekend clothes, should not be a surprise or a shock. It’s simply Musk playing by his own rules.
We’ll have to get used to it because he’s the most influential CEO in the world. A boss whose one tweet can change everything for a company (Tesla), a cryptocurrency (Dogecoin) or even a politician’s future (Ron DeSantis, Musk’s favorite candidate for 2024).
