Does Twitter now belong to Elon Musk?
The billionaire CEO of Tesla (TSLA) suggests he became the owner of the microblogging website. Indeed, Musk changed his bio on the platform on October 26 and now introduces himself as "Chief Twit."
He then posted a short video of himself saying he was entering Twitter's San Francisco headquarters.
"Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!", Musk wrote.
TheStreet contacted a lawyer for Musk to ask if the change in ebio meant there was a finalized deal with Twitter but he did not immediately respond.
Kathaleen McCormick, Chancellor of the Delaware Chancery Court, had given the tech tycoon until Oct. 28 to finalize a deal with Twitter if he wants to avoid a trial.
Indeed, the battle between Musk and Twitter has been going on for six months. The Tesla CEO had made a $44 billion bid to acquire the social network on April 14 after taking a stake of more than 9%.
Twitter had accepted on April 25, but there were several twists and turns that led Musk to withdraw his offer on July 8. Twitter then filed a complaint asking the Delaware Chancery Court to compel Musk to honor his initial commitment.
A 5-day trial was supposed to start on October 17, but Musk surprised everyone by putting his offer back on the table on October 4. In exchange, he asked Twitter to withdraw his complaint.
"A beautiful thing about Twitter is how it empowers citizen journalism – people are able to disseminate news without an establishment bias," the billionaire said on Oct. 26.
He has already said that he wants to create a Super App and that Twitter, which he promised to take private, would speed up this process. Many fear that his takeover of Twitter will bring extremists back to the platform, hate and racist speech.
"Do you consider local news citizen journalism? Have you been inside newsrooms and seen the everyday workings to make statements on news bias? Genuinely curious," he was by a Twitter user on Oct. 26.
"Definitely closer to citizen journalism – local news orgs are under-appreciated & should get way more prominence on Twitter," he responded.
Musk also plans to cut 75% of the platform's workforce, or 5,625 jobs, according to the Washington Post.
