After a lot of hub-bub, the proposed purchase of Twitter by Elon Musk has reached something of a stalemate.
Last week the acquisition was thrown into question when the billionaire meme connoisseur’s lawyers said he has the “right not to consummate” the transaction given Twitter’s behaviour. This likely stemmed from Musk’s insistence that he get access to Twitter’s data to verify that bots and spam accounts only account for less than five percent of the platform’s user base.
Now, according to a report from the Washington Post, Twitter will give Musk access to its “firehose”.
This is essentially Twitter’s data stream comprised of over 500 million tweets each day. This data gives deep insight into not only the real time record of tweets but the device information and account information as well.
The reason for the acquisition reaching the stalemate it has is because Twitter hasn’t given Musk access to this data stream. According to the Washington Post, precious few firms have access to this data and they pay for that access.
The trouble with this whole matter is that Musk waived his right to look at Twitter’s financials and internal workings when he signed the deal to acquire the firm. Musk must go through with the deal now unless he can show that Twitter misled him or a major event has changed the value of the firm.
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Should Musk back out, he could be forced to pay a penalty of $1 billion. Twitter could also sue Musk but whether it would is unclear.
Over the weeks since announcing the deal, Musk sure has had the look of a person with buyer’s remorse. We’ve always found the idea of buying Twitter a bit silly on Musk’s part as compared to the likes of Tesla and SpaceX, Twitter looks like a sunfish.
That having been said, on the back of news of this acquisition, Tesla shares took a deep dive. That stock price dive was so bad Musk decided he would no longer use that stock to fund his acquisition.
This acquisition really has become a game of “will he or won’t he”. Given that Twitter is seemingly ready to give Musk access to its data, it’s looking more and more like Musk is going to have to become the new owner of Twitter.
Unless he can find those pesky bots of course.
