Congratulations are due
for sticking it out against the master conjurer
who on Tuesday surrendered and agreed to proceed with his promised $44 billion acquisition after all.
Twitter persisted when others might have struck a deal to let Mr. Musk off the hook, given his social-media influence and his legion of stock-trading fans, who provide ample means for him to make trouble for a vulnerable public company that annoys him.
Then again, maybe congratulations are due Delaware Court of Chancery Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, who apparently was unwowed by Mr. Musk’s aura and perhaps realized that if Delaware companies can’t expect enforcement of solemn legal contracts, they may be less keen in the future to place themselves under jurisdiction of the court she represents.
Of course, Mr. Musk has only signed another piece of paper, a letter to Twitter’s board saying he wants to proceed. What is his written commitment worth? Presumably less than before he made a global spectacle of himself by reneging on the original deal. Perhaps explanation of his reversal will be soon forthcoming from Mr. Musk himself on his favorite medium—Twitter. For now, sufficient must be the reporting of Bloomberg News, which broke the story and attributed Mr. Musk’s white flag to the realization by his “legal team . . . that the case was not going well.”
Duh. Mr. Musk’s case was far from strong, as pointed out here in July, and furthermore the dispute threatened to pop the mystique that upholds
Tesla’s
all-important share price, a likelihood that only grew with the prospect of Mr. Musk being questioned on the stand about his now-released antic private text messages. Mr. Musk might well have hoped that the Musk aura that so confounded, for instance, the Securities and Exchange Commission when it tried to make him behave like a normal CEO, would also work with the Delaware court and Twitter. They would shrink from forcing the mercurial entrepreneur to proceed with the purchase of an important public company that he had turned to ridiculing and accusing of fraud.
Which brings up a question: If you’re Twitter, what do you do now? Your shareholders presumably want you to hold Mr. Musk to the deal, which would get them $54.20 a share for a stock that might be worth single digits if not…
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