Elon Musk moves in mysterious ways so it is just about possible that his yanking of his $44bn offer to buy Twitter is an aggressive attempt to bounce the target’s board into accepting a lower takeover price. That, at least, is a popular interpretation of events, and Musk’s motive would not be hard to fathom.
Nobody likes to overpay and the original offer price of $54.20 has plainly been overtaken by the slump in valuation of most US tech stocks since April. Twitter’s new share price of $33.50, down 9% in early Monday trading, looks a truer reflection of the social media site’s standalone prospects.
