Britta Pedersen/Getty Images; Twitter; Rachel Mendelson/Insider
Elon Musk’s will-he-won’t-he dance to buy Twitter has been going on for months.
Both parties were ensnared in lawsuits that could have turned into a long, ugly legal battle.
A purchase however appears to be near completion as Musk faces a Friday deadline to close a deal.
The chaotic saga between Elon Musk and Twitter appears to be coming to end on Friday.
By October 28, Musk will have to close a $44 billion purchase of the social media company — one of the largest acquisitions of a tech company in history.
Musk recently changed his Twitter bio to “Chief Twit” and changed his location to mark “Twitter HQ.”
If the deal is completed, it would have followed ten months of a dizzying series of events, which first began in January when Musk bought up Twitter shares.
If you’re hazy on some of the events within that time period, we’ve compiled a full timeline of developments, from Musk tweeting a poop emoji at CEO Parag Agrawal to Twitter and Musk suing each other.
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By March 14, Musk had a 5% stake in the social media company — a threshold that the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) deems large enough to require a public disclosure.
The Washington Post estimates that the Tesla CEO saved about $156 million, or 30%, by delaying disclosure until after the SEC’s March 25 deadline and buying the stock at a lower price.
Andrew Kelly/Reuters
The next day, Twitter told the SEC it intended to appoint Musk to its board of directors.
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Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced on Twitter that the billionaire had decided not to join the board after the Tesla CEO had spent weeks tweeting about his ideas for Twitter, including discussing turning the company’s headquarters into a homeless shelter or adding an edit button.
“I believe this is for the best,” Agrawal said.
Reuters
The deal valued the company at $44 billion.
Twitter threw up a corporate defensive measure called a poison pill designed to stop Musk’s hostile-takeover attempt.
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In accepting the deal, Musk waived all due diligence — relinquishing his right as a buyer to further investigate the state of the company ahead of acquiring it.
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He posted that tweet as his team investigated the company’s claim that less than 5% of its accounts are fake and spam.
Agrawal posted a thread on Twitter explaining how the company settled on that 5% figure. Musk responded to the thread with a poop emoji.
REUTERS/Adrees Latif
He claimed that Twitter was “actively resisting and thwarting [Musk’s] information rights.” In the letter, he threatened to abandon the purchase agreement and said he had the right not to see the deal through.
Alex Kantrowitz
The billionaire also attended his first all-hands meeting with the company’s staff.
Jed Jacobsohn/AP
Twitter’s board said it would take legal action to enforce the original agreement.
Source: SEC
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In the first pretrial hearing, on July 19, Twitter scored its first win against Musk after the judge agreed to an expedited five-day trial in October.
“The longer the merger transaction remains in limbo, the larger a cloud of uncertainty is cast over the company,” Chancery Court Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick said.
AP Photo/Mark J. Terrill
Musk alleged the company is operating a “scheme to mislead investors about the company’s prospects.”
In the countersuit, Musk’s team argues he is entitled to drop the deal because he claims Twitter is intentionally “miscounting” the number of spam accounts on its platform.
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Some of Musk’s closest associates, as well as Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, were included.
Michael Gonzalez/Getty Images/The Washington Post via Getty Images
On August 23, The Washington Post published an explosive 84-page whistleblower complaint from renowned hacker and former Twitter security chief Peiter Zatko.
In the complaint, the security chief — better known as “Mudge” — accused the company of “lying” to Elon Musk about spam accounts on its site, and having poor security practices that could violate a previous FTC settlement agreement.
A Twitter spokesperson said the claims are “riddled with inaccuracies” and that Zatko was fired for “ineffective leadership and poor performance.”
Matt McClain/The Washington Post via Getty Images
His team also filed a motion to amend its countersuit to include the whistleblower’s allegations.
In the second pre-trial hearing, in August, Musk’s team scored a small win when the judge partially granted Musk’s demand for Twitter to produce more data on scam accounts.
However, the judge called the billionaire’s original request for “trillions upon trillions” of data points “absurdly broad.”
Patrick Pleul/AP
The judge allowed the billionaire to amend his countersuit to include allegations from Twitter’s whistleblower, but she had some harsh words for his legal team — calling their efforts to cooperate with Twitter’s discovery process “suboptimal.”
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That happened well before he officially said he planned to back out of the purchase. The billionaire said he wouldn’t want to buy the company “if we’re heading into World War 3” with Russia.
Source: Insider
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In a letter to the social media company, Musk’s legal team argued that Twitter had breached its agreement with Musk in allegedly offering Zatko a $7.75 million severance package.
Source: Insider
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That put the fate of the deal entirely in the hands of the court case, which was set for a five-day trial in October.
Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
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Choosing to close a deal with Twitter would avoid what could have been a lengthy legal battle in a Delaware court.
Twitter at the time said in a statement to Insider that it would continue to seek to close a transaction at $54.20 per share, Musk’s original offer.
A Delaware judge gave Musk a deadline of October 28 to complete the deal.
Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images
On Wednesday, two days before the Friday deadline to close the deal, Musk posted a video on Twitter of him visiting the company’s headquarters in San Francisco.
“Entering Twitter HQ — let that sink in,” he wrote.
—Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022
He has also since changed his Twitter bio to read “Chief Twit,” with a location marked “Twitter HQ,” suggesting a deal is near completion.
Anonymous Twitter employees told The New York Times that Musk has plans to attend several meetings this week and will address the company’s employees on Friday.