The main line
Friends of the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, tried to talk him out of buying Twitter after they realized he was serious about the buyout, sources told Axios, as Musk tries to retire his 44-year-old social media company. billion dollars in the world’s most high-profile network. product return.
Elon Musk talks to reporters in Norway last month.
Key facts
Elon Musk’s billionaire friend Reid Hoffman, who was an early employee of PayPal alongside Musk and later co-founded LinkedIn, told Axios that his reaction to the deal on Twitter was: “Oh my God, another problem of big” on Axios. How It Happened podcast.
Other people close to Musk told Axios they were concerned about how the acquisition would divert his focus from SpaceX and Tesla, which Musk runs as CEO.
Hoffman told Axios his venture firm Greylock Partners declined to participate in Twitter’s financing, but expressed optimism about Musk’s ability to lead Twitter, citing “his ability to overcome the kind of challenging death, where you think , ‘Oh my God, it’s not, ‘It’s going to work,’ and you’re just going to keep walking into it.”
Key background
Musk revealed that on April 4 he bought a 9.2% stake in Twitter, which announced later that month that it had accepted Musk’s unsolicited $44 billion offer to buy the company. Musk is one of the platform’s most popular and polarizing users and a sharp critic of Twitter’s content moderation policies. The romance between the unlikely pair proved short-lived, as Musk tried to back out of the acquisition deal in July, while Twitter sued Musk days later to delay the deal. Musk and Twitter will face off in a five-day trial in Delaware next month.
Forbes Rating
We estimate that Musk is worth $270.4 billion, a fortune about $120 billion more than the next largest fortune. Hoffman has a modest net worth of $1.9 billion and has served on Microsoft’s board since the company acquired LinkedIn in 2016.
Further reading
Elon Musk vs. Twitter (Axios)
Twitter shareholders officially accept Musk’s $44 billion bid he’s desperately trying to get out of (Forbes)
