- [Narrator] Twitter has been on a rollercoaster
throughout 2022 ending on October 27th
in one of the biggest tech takeovers in history.
Going back earlier this year here in April,
Elon Musk made a massive 44 billion bid
for the company but just three months later,
he called it off.
Twitter sued.
Musk sued back.
- Oh yeah, Twitter.
(audience laughing)
- [Narrator] Then he changed his mind again.
- This has been a drawn out fight
between Twitter and Musk with a lot of twists
and turns.
- [Narrator] Those twists and turns take place
on a timeline that has not only influenced stock prices
but has also sown uncertainty among employees
and as Twitter says,
contributed to a 1% decline in revenue.
So how did Musk's flip flopping
on the deal lead to a six month battle
that threw off Twitter's business.
His tweets, statements and text messages,
as well as court documents tell the story.
The timeline starts here
on January 31st when Musk started buying
up shares of Twitter
and he started sharing his opinions
about how the platform works.
- He did toss out a lot of ideas
on how to change Twitter,
how he thought he could make Twitter better.
Things like emphasizing free speech,
things like changing
how it approaches content moderation.
- [Narrator] After months of buying,
Musk publicly disclosed a 9.2% stake
in the company.
His first tweet of the day said simply...
The next day Twitter announced
that Musk would be joining the board.
- Musk is one of the most prominent users
of Twitter but he's also been one
of its loudest critics.
Twitter invited him to join the board
to try to bring him into the fold and work
with him on these issues.
- [Narrator] Musk tweeted
that he was looking forward
to making significant improvements
to Twitter in the coming months.
- At first, when he was talking
with Twitter's leadership, it was pretty friendly
but then a friction tension started to emerge.
- [Narrator] As Musk was gearing up to join,
he was still criticizing the platform.
Tweeting "Is Twitter dying?"
CEO Parag Agrawal texted Musk,
"It's my responsibility to tell you
that it's not helping me make Twitter better
in the current context."
To which Musk responded,
"I'm not joining the board.
This is a waste of time.
will make an offer to take Twitter private."
- Musk would be the new owner
and I think the thinking is that
if Twitter's private he would be able
to take more risk in trying to overhaul
or jumpstart their business.
- [Narrator] It didn't take long for Musk
to act on that promise.
Formerly announcing his 43 billion bid to take
over the company, the number was later revised
to 44 billion.
In an interview with TED that day,
he explained his decision.
- My strong intuitive sense is
that having a public platform
that is maximally trusted
and broadly inclusive is extremely important
to the future of civilization.
- [Narrator] On April 25th, Musk
and Twitter officially reached a merger agreement.
But even as Musk was lining up fresh financing
and cheering more ideas for the platform,
he had a surprise in store.
- The billionaire CEO announcing just hours ago
that the $44 billion deal to take Twitter private
is now on hold.
- [Narrator] Musk tweeted that the deal was temporarily
on hold as he was waiting for more information
from Twitter on the number of spam accounts
on the site.
- We know that Musk had talked about bots
before the deal but then he started having
more concerns or saying he had more concerns
and he started questioning kind of the health
of Twitter's business.
- [Narrator] Musk expressed interest
in a lower price for the company
at the "All-In" Summit on May 16th.
- You can't pay the same price for something
that is much worse than they claimed.
- Twitter's CEO addressed Musk's bot claims,
tweeting in a thread that the company estimated
that less than 5% of reported monetizable daily active users
are spam accounts and they don't believe
this specific estimation can be performed externally.
Musk replied with several tweets
but one was just...
Musk continued to push himself further
from the deal, threatening to walk away
in a letter to Twitter saying he believed the company is
actively resisting and thwarting his information rights.
Musk's reversal was followed by a flurry
of coverage and commentary.
- Yep, I feel like Elon is pretty close
to saying, "I'm so sorry.
My two year old took my iPad and clicked buy
so I didn't know what... (audience laughing)
So we're cool?
We're cool, right?"
- [Narrator] He officially tried
to call the whole thing off
at the beginning of July.
- I mean, at the start,
Musk was really pushing for this deal
and Twitter was kind of resisting and then
it kind of seemed like their positions changed
and Musk was the one trying to back out
while Twitter was saying
that they wanted to close.
- [Narrator] Four days later,
Twitter formally sued Musk
in an effort to force the merger through.
- So Twitter said they did share information
about how they handled spam and fake accounts
with Musk but Musk kept demanding more
and that was a big part of the legal fight
that was going on.
- [Narrator] The filing took aim
at Musk's flip flopping focusing
on how it affected the company.
- Just looking through the filing here,
it says quote, Musk apparently believes that he,
unlike every other party subject
to Delaware contract law is free
to change his mind, trash the company,
disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value
and walk away.
- [Narrator] Musk filed a counter suit
claiming revisions to user numbers
in the company's first quarter earnings
in April were what sparked his push
for bot data.
Twitter rejected Musk's claims.
As both sides prepared for a fight in court,
a former Twitter employee filed a whistleblower complaint
against the company alleging among other things
that Twitter doesn't properly count spam accounts.
Musk seized on that as further ammunition
to call the agreement off.
But after pushing for months to end the deal,
he changed his mind again.
At the beginning of October,
he proposed closing on the original terms.
- That was surprising because it's not really
like him to back down.
I mean, we've seen prior lawsuits
where he's fought more and for longer.
- [Narrator] In a Tesla earnings call
on October 19th, Musk spoke briefly
about the deal.
- [Musk] Although obviously myself
and the other investors are obviously overpaying
for Twitter right now,
the long term potential for Twitter
in my view is in order of magnitude greater
than it's current value.
- [Narrator] Twitter isn't in the shape
it was back in April.
- We have more economic concerns
just broadly in the economy.
And then specifically for Twitter,
the uncertainty has weighed on Twitter
because no one knew if the deal was actually
gonna go through.
- [Narrator] Upon completing the takeover,
Musk fired CEO Parag Agrawal,
and Chief Financial Officer, Ned Segal,
according to people familiar with the matter.
Twitter did not immediately respond
to request for comment.