Elon Musk ‘dodges questions about Twitter’ in Sun Valley speech a day after announcing he’s terminating $44billion deal
ELON Musk has addressed attendees at the prestigious annual Sun Valley Conference, but reportedly dodged questions about ending his Twitter takeover deal.
The world's richest man took to the stage Saturday at the exclusive Idaho event just 24 hours after announcing that he's terminating his $44billion deal to acquire the social media platform.
Instead of talking about the collapse of the deal, Musk instead focused his attention on SpaceX and his plans to go to Mars, attendees revealed.
He reportedly described his planned Mars colony as “civilization life insurance”.
Sources told Reuters that Musk also spoke of boosting birth rates on Earth, just days after it was reported that he and a top female executive at his Neuralink company had welcomed twins.
Musk earlier this week tweeted that he is doing his best to help "the underpopulation crisis", with the twins taking his number of children to nine.
Musk's arrival had been much anticipated at the four-day Sun Valley Lodge event that brings together a plethora of media and tech moguls and billionaires.
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Bloomberg reporter Sonali Basak : "Sources tell me ... that Musk dodged questions on Twitter at Sun Valley, leaning in heavily on life on Mars as “civilization life insurance.”
She continued : "At least one attendee wasn’t perturbed about the lack of detail on Twitter due to pending litigation."
Musk said he was ditching the Twitter deal in a bombshell announcement on Friday, alleging in a letter that the company "breached" the merger agreement.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is also attending the Allen & Co-sponsored event in Idaho.
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According to a letter from Musk, he claimed that Twitter is "in material breach of multiple provisions" of a previous letter of agreement.
Additionally, the letter states that Twitter "appears to have made false and misleading representations upon which Mr Musk relied when entering into the Merger Agreement."
The letter goes on to state that Twitter has not complied with its previously stated contractual obligations.
Musk stated that Twitter failed to provide information regarding its spam and bot accounts, which was formally requested in a letter dating May 25.
The first reported that the Twitter acquisition was "in jeopardy" on Thursday because of Musk's concerns over spam accounts.
The bombshell news that the deal would be terminated came less than a day later.
Musk’s attorneys delivered an eight-page letter to Twitter, saying he planned to call off the acquisition of the social media platform.
Musk's anger over spam bots
The letter stated: "The May 25 Letter made clear that Mr Musk’s goal was to understand how many of Twitter’s claimed mDAUs were, in fact, fake or spam accounts.
"Twitter has failed or refused to provide this information."
"Mr Musk has reason to believe that the true number of false or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform is substantially higher than the amount of less than 5% represented by Twitter in its SEC filings."
According to the termination letter, Musk sought this specific information three additional times, in letters dated June 6, 2022, June 17, 2022, and June 29, 2022.
The document, filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, alleged "Twitter failed to respond to repeated requests for information over the past two months, or obtain his consent before taking actions that would impact its business - such as firing two key executives."
Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor published a tweet late Friday afternoon regarding the termination.
"The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement," Taylor wrote.
"We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery."
Shares of Twitter fell by 6 percent on Friday afternoon as news of the planned termination broke.
Musk was working to finalize a deal to buy Twitter on April 25 for $46.5billion.
The Tesla CEO had previously said: "A top priority I would have is eliminating the spam and spam bots and bot armies that are on Twitter."
Musk has also said that Twitter needs to be taken private to grow and become a genuine platform for free speech.
Musk's termination of the deal came despite Twitter holding a virtual briefing with reporters earlier on Thursday, explaining how it determines which of the accounts on its platform are bots, or spam accounts.
The platform has said less than 5% of its daily active user accounts are fake.
According to , a Twitter spokesperson pointed to a previous statement that the company “has and will continue to cooperatively share information with Mr Musk to consummate the transaction in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement."
"We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement at the agreed price and terms,"; per CNBC.
Those comments came before Musk signaled he was pulling out.
Indeed, Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor Friday that the company will pursue legal action, taking the matter to court.
Musk's comments at Sun Valley may have been hard to swallow for two Twitter attendees at the conference : CEO Parag Agrawal and Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal.
While the news Musk is dropping the deal was jarring, the billionaire has been expressing buyer's remorse over the venture since soon after it was announced less than three months ago.
In , Musk tweeted, "Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users."
Twitter shares have over the uncertainty of its future, dropping about 10% on Friday both during the session and after hours.
Taylor said in a yesterday, "we are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery."
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Musk made headlines earlier this week when it was revealed that he welcomed twins with Neuralink's Shivon Zilis late last year.
Musk acknowledged the birth of children, which was not after an Insider report detailing court documents that showed they were born in November 2021.