May 13

On again, off again

Is Elon Musk just messing with us all?

First, he announced that he would be buying just over 9% of Twitter and, the very next day, confirmed he would be joining Twitter’s Board of Directors. Then, he declined the Board seat (because of the pesky background check they wanted to run). Then, he announced his intention to buy Twitter outright for a cool $43 Billion. Originally, there was talk of the Twitter Board of Directors instituting a “poison pill” clause in order to not accept Musk’s offer. But ultimately, Twitter did decide to accept the offer to be acquired and all was set for Elon Musk to take over the blue bird app.

Until today.

Earlier today, Elon Musk tweeted out, “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users” – linking out to a Reuters article about spambot accounts on Twitter, sending its shares to tumble by double-digits since the close of day yesterday.

So what in the world is going on? Will this acquisition actually happen? Or is this going to play out like an entire season of Billions with the world watching, with swerve after swerve?

It’s impossible to tell how it will end. I feel for the product people at Twitter, though. We can all joke about editable tweets – but how can anybody possibly be productive when there’s so much uncertainty playing out? And it’s not like this is the first time that they’ve had to deal with leadership changes playing out publicly.

Time will only tell. I guess we’ll all have to tune in for next week’s episode to find out what’s next.

Mike Belsito

About the author

Mike Belsito is a startup product and business developer who loves creating something from nothing. Mike is the Co-Founder of Product Collective which organizes INDUSTRY, one of the largest product management summits anywhere in the world. For his leadership at Product Collective, Mike was named one of the Top 40 influencers in the field of Product Management. Mike also serves as a Faculty member of Case Western Reserve University in the department of Design and Innovation, and is Co-Host of one of the top startup podcasts online, Rocketship.FM. Prior to Product Collective, Mike spent the past 12 years in startup companies as an early employee, Co-Founder, and Executive. Mike's businesses and products have been featured in national media outlets such as the New York Times, The Atlantic, CNN, NPR, and elsewhere. Mike is also the Author of Startup Seed Funding for the Rest of us, one of the top startup books on Amazon.


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