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On October 26 last year Elon Musk
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walked into the Twitter offices carrying a kitchen sink.
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It was an appropriate end to a draining few months
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for everyone who had followed the twists
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and turns of his $44bn takeover of Twitter.
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No one initially expected that Musk would make a bid
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to take the company private.
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The billionaire founder of Tesla disclosed the stake
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in the social media platform in early April,
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becoming its biggest shareholder.
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Ten days later he offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share.
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Most of the world was still in the post-pandemic boom
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where money was cheap.
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Banks, including Morgan Stanley and Barclays,
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offered to lend almost $13bn per transaction
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and Musk posted his Tesla shares as collateral.
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But shortly after Musk made his bid
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and refused to do due diligence in order
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to get the deal over the line, he
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tried to walk back on the watertight merger agreement.
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It became a captivating 'will he, won't he'
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saga that solidified his reputation
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as a mercurial billionaire whose defining characteristic is
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unpredictability.
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The fight was set to end up in Delaware,
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where a judge would decide whether Musk
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had to buy the company.
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But just weeks before Twitter and Musk
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were set to come to a head they drew up a settlement.
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The repercussions of that deal have been widely felt.
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Musk has removed more than two-thirds
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of Twitter's employees and the banks that
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helped finance the transaction are sitting on billions of debt
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they aren't able to offload to investors.
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Part of the reason is that markets
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have taken a turn for the worse, but investors are also
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unwilling to deal with Musk's eccentricities.
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Musk has promised to turn Twitter
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into a more efficient and open tool for sharing information,
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while trying to keep wary advertisers on the platform
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so he can service the enormous amount of debt
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weighing the company down.
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What is clear is that Musk has become
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perhaps the most powerful figure in the media industry
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and in control of a platform that
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is used daily by some of the world's
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most influential figures.
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Let that sink in.
