Elon Musk is quite active on Twitter, everyone is aware of this very much. Elon remains to be in the spotlight, many times for his tweets. Elon Musk is not on any other social media except Twitter. Well, everyone must also be aware that Twitter has now successfully been acquired by Elon Musk. Well, this deal was not as straightforward as we all might expect from it. The deal concluded after a series of events, which makes it to be one of the most expensive tech acquisitions in history.

Twitter was purchased overpriced by Elon Musk for $44 billion while the original evaluation of Twitter stands at just about $25 billion as per Dan Ives from Wedbush. The actual date when he announced that he would buy Twitter was 14th April 2022. On 25th April, Twitter accepted the deal. By July 8th, Elon wanted out i.e. he was no longer interested in buying Twitter. On 29th October, Elon officially acquired Twitter, and since then he has already dissolved the board of directors and installed himself as CEO.
Here, I have tried to explain in detail, all the major events that took place during the deal:

1. How did it begin?

On 9th April 2022, Elon purchased 9.1% of the company’s shares making him the largest stakeholder of the tech giant. Elon immediately started giving suggestions about changes required to improve Twitter. Some of those include an edit feature for everyone, less moderation, an open algorithm, and a comparatively higher bar for removing offending tweets. Looking at this, the tech giant responded by offering him a seat on the board. At first, Elon accepted the offer and said yes but later he changed his mind and refused the offer. The possible reason for the same could be that Elon knew becoming a board member would have restricted him to owning just 15 per cent of the company. Well, it can be quite predicted from here, that Elon had something else in his mind from the very start. He didn't want to be a passive player in the company’s affairs as a person on board rather wanted to attempt something more impactful.

2. Elon throws an offer to buy Twitter

Elon offered a wonderful premium for all the shareholders in the company by offering $43 Billion for a company having a market cap of $37 billion and said that his offer to buy Twitter is “fair and final”. All this happened on 14th April 2022 which is just 5 days after Elon bought the shares in the company. In response to being asked why he want to buy Twitter, Elon said that he is very rich and thus obviously he wasn’t buying Twitter to print dollars rather he wants to build an open free-speech social media platform for the world. Elon views Twitter as a “de facto town square”. So basically, Elon tried to frame the entire takeover deal as an act to protect the free speech of users. At the company’s first-ever all-hands meeting after the bid, the officials presented their concerns over a more detailed response and also rose concerns over the platform’s future as well as possible layoffs in future.

3. Twitter accepts the deal

On 25th April 2022, the company’s board of directors accepted Elon’s offer of $44 billion which means that after the successful completion of the deal it would grant Elon total control of the company and Twitter will now become a private company. It was for the same price he quoted in his initial offer on 14th April 2022. Elon started to line up for financing for the deal. For the same, he sold about 9.6 million of his Tesla shares for about $8.4 billion. Meanwhile, during a conference with Financial Express, Elon upon being asked about what he’ll do about the permanent ban on Donald Trump on Twitter responded by saying that he’d undo it.

4. Parag fires top executives in the company

Parag Agrawal, the former CEO of the company, fired some of the top executives in the company, including consumer product leader Kayvon Beykpour and the general manager of revenue and head of product Bruce Falck. In response, Parag said, “The priorities and decisions we make now will not only bolster how we navigate through this time but also for the longer-term success of Twitter which I care about deeply”.

5. Elon asks for spam bot data

Elon tweeted: “My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate”, referencing Twitter citing that less than 5 per cent of the accounts on the platform are fake or spam. Further in the tweet, it was written that: “Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does”. Well, Elon's frustration seemed to be quite unreasonable, as this would have to be taken into consideration by Elon before binding a deal with the company for purchase. Soon after this, Elon also threatened the company for breaking the deal over a “breach” of the agreement. After several tweets and a series of questions and answers, Elon’s legal team made its very first official step to back out of the acquisition. In the legal filing, Elon's legal team claimed that Twitter failed to provide Elon with information on the spam bot problem and he was entitled to receive that information under the deal agreement. They also alleged that Twitter is actively preventing him from getting the information he needed.

6. Twitter files case on Elon

As Elon's intentions got clear about backing out of buying the company, Twitter filed a lawsuit that said: Elon agreed to pay $44 billion for Twitter, and Twitter intend to get all $44 billion for their shareholders. The suit was filed in the Delaware Court of Chancery. Twitter started to experience the Musk Effect, which was clear when Twitter reported the company's earnings in July. The company stated that its revenue had fallen because of a large number of reasons but majorly because of “uncertainty in the pending acquisition of Twitter by Elon Musk”. Also, Twitter didn’t give Elon credit for user growth i.e. more people signing up on the platform. Twitter reported more than 237 million daily users, up from 229 million in the last quarter. In response to this, the company said, that it was due to “ongoing product improvements”. Elon wanted more time for the trial to start. He wanted that it should begin somewhere around February 2023. On the other hand, Twitter wanted to start this as soon as possible. Chancellor McCormick (the person who oversaw the entire trial) said that the trial will begin on 17th October and will last only for five days. McCormick also said that “I am convinced that even four weeks’ delay would risk further harm to Twitter too great to justify”.

7. Mudge enters to defend Elon

“Mudge” (original name Peiter Zatko) was fired in early 2022 from the post of Twitter's Head of Security. In July, he filed a lawsuit blaming Twitter of that it has hidden its negligent security practices, also it has misled federal regulators about its safety, and has also failed to properly give an estimate of the number of bots on the platform. Zatko is a long-tenured as well as well-respected hacker and security expert, and thus his allegations surely left a huge impact on the Twitter deal.

8. Elon's Legal team comes into action

Elon’s lawyers sent three letters to the platform attempting to terminate his agreement to buy the company. The letters talked about Twitter’s multimillion-dollar severance payment to Zatko (Twitter's ex Head of Security), claiming that it was a violation of the agreement and stating it as to be a reason to end the deal. A few days later, the platform responded the way it always does and said that: the argument is invalid and Twitter hasn’t breached its side of the deal, and so Elon can’t either. In early September, Delaware Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick (who was in charge of the trial) said that Elon’s side can include Zatko’s claims in its case but Elon denied it as it was yet another effort to delay the trial.

9. Elon sells more shares of Tesla

Even after promising in April that “no further TSLA (name of tesla shares) sales will be done a post today”, Elon sold another huge batch of his shares. Citing justification for it, he tweeted that “In the hopefully unlikely event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stocks".

10. Elon Agrees to buy Twitter

The court served a notice period to Elon and Twitter until 5 PM, 28th October 2022. Elon before entering into any legal procedures accepted the deal and acquired the company. Experts said that it was almost confirmed that Elon would lose the case as he signed the deal agreement. On the other hand, where the US Federal Reserve was constantly increasing the interest rates due to high inflation in the USA, the share price of Twitter came down to just $33, and Elon agreed to pay approximately $54 for the same. this was believed to be also one of the major reasons why Elon backed out of buying Twitter as he overpriced the platform. After the deal's completion, no shares are in public hands, as now all shares are held by Elon and thus their purchase, as well as the sale, will be stopped. It was also reported that Dorsey (founder of the platform and ex-CEO) was personally in touch with Elon over the deal and also convinced him personally about the purchase.

Some more news events that happened from the start:

1. Saudi Prince interferes and said that Twitter won't be sold under any circumstances.

2. Elon says Twitter must be “politically neutral” in reply to a comment posted. The comment reported recent account deletions by left-leaning users. Since Elon’s $44 billion deal offer was accepted by the platform's board, thousands of users closed their accounts on the platform. The company confirmed this, which lead to a dip in the followers of left-leaning politicians and celebrities such as Barack Obama, Taylor Swift etc. Also, on the other hand, right-wing influencers such as Boris Johnson, Ted Cruz etc have experienced a gain in followers as new users sign up for the platform.

3. As soon as Elon Musk took the charge, he fired the CEO Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal and the legal affairs and policy chief Vijaya Gadde. It was reported that the firing was done as shown in the movies, and they were not escorted with respect rather they had to run off from the office. One of the major reasons for this was that they all were personally involved in the matter and made sure that the Twitter deal is completed. Also, Elon allegedly accused them of misleading him and providing little clarity over how he will achieve the loft ambitions he has outlined for the influential social media platform.

4. Soon after Elon took over, as expected major layoffs were observed in the company. Reportedly, several people lost their jobs in the past few days.

5. Elon announced that he will get rid of the platform of the current god-peasant system of the platform. Now, anyone can get a blue tick by just paying $8 per month.

6. Soon after the acquisition, Dogecoin (cryptocurrency/meme coin that Elon Musk supports a lot) prices have been skyrocketing which was at their last-time low in the past few months.

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