I believe there are still more twists and turns in the Elon Musk chasing after his favorite social media platform saga.
It’s getting a little out of hand now.
It seems like it’s the story that will never burn out, yet it gives us deep insight into the state of the tech industry.
It could be just a giant ploy to buy Twitter (TWTR) shares on the open market by Musk as it traded all the way down to $35 per share in July.
Musk could have feigned problematic to drag the price of shares down and scoop them up on the cheap to bring down the cost basis of the sale.
This could be the reason why Musk has offered to conclude a $44 billion acquisition of Twitter in a dramatic turn of events.
The SpaceX Chief had written to Twitter yesterday offering to close the deal at the original price of $54.20 a share.
Musk had been set for a courtroom duel with Twitter with multiple legal commentators warning he had a slim chance of succeeding in his attempt to scrap the deal.
On the surface, it certainly does appear as if Musk has been pacified and content with pushing the deal through.
However, the caveat, funding must be secured for this to go through and since the interest rate environment has turned from bad to atrocious, the other question that must be asked is whether banks can provide the necessary funding at exorbitant rates.
Musk is already thinking 5 steps ahead tweeting that the acquisition could be an “accelerant” to “creating X, the everything app”, adding the process would be accelerated by up to five years without giving further details.
Musk’s initial argument in reneging on his offer to buy the company was that it had miscounted the number of spam or bot accounts on its platform.
An “everything app” could mean something similar to China’s WeChat.
A super app in which you can do everything from paying the gas bill, to ordering pizza, and even finding a new girlfriend.
No doubt if the deal goes through, Twitter and Tesla will be inextricably linked with services of each on both.
Getting down to the nuts and bolts, Twitter is a great technology asset and one that is highly scarce.
It’s the center of conversation for anyone who is of high visibility.
Although I believe the price Musk is paying is way too high and $25 billion seems more appropriate, Musk is a victim of his own brinkmanship.
I also believe that a sharp recession that we could experience in 2023 was the real reason for securing the deal now and not later.
If Tesla’s stock tanks in 2023, it would be cringe-worthy to sell stock at depressed prices to fund a Twitter deal.
Musk saw a clear path to financing this deal and that is the clincher. It also bodes ill for tech stocks in 2023 if Musk thinks he needs to cash in now before they head lower as the Fed raises rates aggressively.
However, something tells me this deal will still get dragged out.
