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Comment by Jyaif | Hacker News Reader

Assuming that's true, would that mean that Elon has a way out that does not involve paying 1B$ ?

Analysis here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SfXoCj4TLk TL;DR is that it may or may not be enough to justify it in court if Twitter sues, but it probably is enough to make a court case necessary, and Twitter's board may be reluctant to spend years in court trying to win their case, since inevitably the court case would involve the very public airing of facts like this that would not paint Twitter in a good light.

And would block any possible future deal, with Elon or anybody else until that court case was resolved.

Twitter wasn't looking to sell itself. This was an unsolicited takeover bid.

That's true, and the Twitter shareholders should have realized who they are dealing with. But that does not mean that tying themselves up a court case for several years is smart because it appears that in fact they are willing to sell.

Well, the threat was there to bypass the board of directors, controlled by big long-term investors, and go directly to the shareholders, many of whom would be happy to cash out for short-term gain. So the board was under major pressure to agree, even if they were somewhat reluctant.

Aside: Patrick Boyle's humor is always spot on. Love that channel.

Absolutely agreed.

AFAIK he doesn't even have a way out of paying the full buying price. The breakup fee does not allow him to abritarly invoke it. It is only conditional on finance, of which the banks have already given binding commitments. Matt Levine has a great article on it [1].

[1] - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-05-13/elon-m...

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