Elon Musk got a hot stream of free speech from the Twitterverse after telling Twitter he wanted to abort his $44 billion deal to buy the company.
The right-wing Twitter power user, through a letter sent Friday from his lawyers to the social network, officially claimed that he was nixing the pact reached in April because Twitter “appears to have made false and misleading representations,” including “dramatically understating the proportion of spam and false accounts.” Why the world’s wealthiest individual seemingly failed to conduct due diligence on this issue prior to clinching an acquisition agreement is unclear; Wall Street analysts have suggested Musk was in fact seeking a lower price tag given the stock market’s sharp year-to-date decline. Twitter said Friday it plans to go to court to force Musk to comply with the original terms of his offer.
Naturally, Twitter users had a field day with this latest development, gleefully posting memes, jokes and barbed critiques about Musk’s about-face.
“BREAKING: Elon Musk has announced he’s pulling out of his Twitter deal in order to spend more time with his ego,” cracked screenwriter Randi Mayem Singer (“Mrs. Doubtfire”).
Numerous Twitter commenters played off the recent report that Musk fathered twins with an exec at Neuralink, a neurotech company he co-founded. That brings the number of children he’s believed to have fathered to 10, including his second child with musician Grimes born in December 2021 a few short months after the birth of the twins.
“Elon Musk pulls out, for the first time ever,” quipped Jezebel editor-in-chief Laura Bassett (who gave credit for the joke to Erin Ryan of Crooked Media’s “Hysteria” podcast).
“Elon Musk looking at his child support bills, realizing he can’t afford a social media site anymore,” tweeted Mike Drucker, writer for “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee.”
Here are some of the best reactions to Musk’s move to terminate the Twitter takeover:
Elon Musk after trying to pull out the Twitter deal: pic.twitter/l3J4vqXTyn
— philip lewis (@Phil_Lewis_) July 8, 2022
Gotta be awkward for the GOP now that Elon Musk is supporting them but apparently refuses to carry a deal to full term.
— Charlotte Clymer
