Tesla chief Elon Musk wanted to get out of $44 billion deal to buy Twitter as he thought it wouldn’t make any sense to complete the takeover as “we’re heading into world war 3”, according to texts between the billionaire entrepreneur and his bankers revealed in a court hearing.
During a session in a Delaware court on Tuesday, Twitter lawyers shared a message exchanged between Musk and a banker. The microblogging site argued that Musk was not concerned about spam or bots as he keeps claiming, rather he was worried over the world moving towards another global war in the wake of Russia-Ukraine tussle.
In a message exchanged between the SpaceX CEO and the banker on May 8, Musk suggested the banker to delay the Twitter deal until after Russian President Vladimir Putin gave a speech the following day.
Tesla boss wrote: “Let’s slow down just a few days. Putin’s speech tomorrow is extremely important.”
Musk walked away from a $44 billion offer for Twitter saying the company misled him and regulators about the true number of spam or bot accounts on the microblogging platform. However, the company has maintained that not more than 5 per cent accounts its platform are fake or bot.
The Tesla boss launched a fresh salvo at the social media platform citing a news article which quoted an expert as saying that eight in ten Twitter accounts are fake. It further added that both Musk and Twitter have underestimated the company’s bot problem.
Musk sent an additional letter of deal termination to Twitter Inc after he subpoenaed a whistleblower seeking documents on how the social media company measures spam accounts.
According to a court filing, the Tesla boss has sought information from whistleblower and former head of Twitter’s security Peiter Zatko mostly about the way the microblogging site measures spam account.
