Elon Musk’s tweets on Friday fed into swirling speculation that he may back out of the deal.Credit…John Raoux/Associated PressIn the latest bomb in the Twitter takeover drama, Elon Musk tweeted this morning that his $44 billion bid was “temporarily on hold” until he could verify the company’s estimate that spam and fake accounts on its platform made up less than 5 percent of total users (that number is not new). About two hours later, Mr. Musk tweeted that he was still “committed” to the acquisition.Twitter shares had already fallen by 20 percent in premarket trading, while Tesla shares had jumped by 6 percent.The tweets fed into swirling speculation that Mr. Musk may back out of the deal, as shares of Tesla, Mr. Musk’s main source of personal income, have tumbled. Mr. Musk had a covert meeting at Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters last Friday to discuss business and deal logistics, DealBook has confirmed, implying he was, at least then, focused on going through with it. (A spokesperson told DealBook that “as part of the transaction planning process, Elon Musk visited Twitter’s office for a meeting.”)And he has already signed a contract. Beyond the $1 billion breakup fee, Twitter could take Mr. Musk to court to force him to pay for the deal if his debt financing is intact, per the deal contract.Mr. Musk might be trying to push for a lower price by laying the grounds for a finding of material adverse c …
