We’ve all had buyer’s remorse, but few people ever find themselves regretting a $44 billion purchase. Since Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter at a substantial premium in April, the stock market has tumbled, with tech stocks among the worst hit. Twitter now seems much less valuable. And for Musk, borrowing against Tesla stock to pay for the company is much more expensive.
Although Musk has good financial reasons to renegotiate his acquisition of Twitter, he can’t void the purchase agreement by pleading poor market timing. Musk faces an uphill battle against Twitter in court to get out of the deal.
In his rush to acquire Twitter, Musk left himself little legal room to maneuver. He argues that his exit is justified by inaccurate spambot numbers and Twitter’s failure to provide certain information about spambot calculations. Neither argument seems supported by the available evidence or, more important, relevant to the contract Musk signed.
