How Elon Musk’s trigger-happy Twitter ways land him in more boil

Elon Musk’s trigger-happy Twitter persona might get him into more soup as the days come. After spectacularly pulling out of buying the social media giant- citing underreported fake profiles on the platform– the San Francisco-based company has filed a lawsuit against the eccentric South African for going back on his $44 billion promise to purchase the company. The lawsuit states that the billionaire entrepreneur is “refusing to honor his obligations” to Twitter and its shareholders.

Also Read: Boulevard of broken deals: The Musk-Twitter saga so far

The lawsuit argues that the company has been transparent about its methods of counting spam users. Additionally, its lawyers point out that the Tesla co-founder had stated his intention of ridding the platform of spam bots as per a tweet from April 21.

“If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!,” wrote Musk back in the day.

But the lawsuit also cites other instances when Musk made similar claims. First, in a text message to Bret Taylor, chairman and co-CEO of Twitter’s board of directors. And more publicly in a press release announcing his intentions to take over the company on April 25:

“In his press release announcing the deal on April 25, 2022, Musk raised a clarion call to ‘defeat the spam bots.’ But when the market declined and the fix-price deal became less attractive, Musk shifted his narrative, suddenly demanding ‘verification’ that spam was not a serious problem on Twitter’s platform, and claiming a burning need to conduct ‘diligence’ he had expressly forsworn,” argues the lawsuit.

Also Read: Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover: A complete timeline of events

The issue has been at the heart of the acquisition fracas, with Musk engaging in a strange repartee with Twitter’s other CEO, Parag Agarwal.

It’s not the first time Musk has gotten into trouble for his tweets. In 2018, the magnate tweeted- supposedly to impress his then-girlfriend Grimes– that he had secured funding to take the company private at $420 a share.