“His engagement with Twitter took a severe toll on the company,” said Jason Goldman, a member of Twitter’s founding team who has also served on its board of directors. “Employees, advertisers and the market at large cannot have conviction in a company whose path is unknowable and which will now go to court to complete a transaction with a bad-faith actor.”
The precarious situation underscores why Twitter is set to sue Mr. Musk as soon as this week to force a completion of the deal. The court battle is likely to be protracted and immense, involving months of expensive litigation and high-stakes negotiations by elite lawyers. A resolution is far from certain — Twitter might win, but, if it loses, Mr. Musk could walk away by paying a breakup fee. Or the two sides could renegotiate or settle.
On Monday, the damage that Mr. Musk, 51, has inflicted was evident. Twitter’s stock plunged more than 11 percent to one of its lowest points since 2020 as investors anticipated the coming legal battle. Since Twitter accepted Mr. Musk’s acquisition offer, on April 25, its stock has lost over a third of its value as investors have grown increasingly skeptical that the deal would get done on the agreed terms. (In contrast, the tech-heavy Nasdaq index was down about 12.5 percent in the same period.)
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