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Musk was about to be forced to go through with the deal by the Chancery Court. This way he still feels like he's in control of the botched takover.

noirbot 4y ago
I'm not actually sure they would have made him go through with it vs. just pay some large fine to Twitter if he was insistent on wanting to get out. The issue is the road to get to that point would have run through a LOT of discovery and legal wrangling that was already starting to drag out some suspicious-looking stuff. Maybe it's all nothing, but even so, fighting anything in court is a punishment of its own.
- swores 4y ago
  There's basically no chance it would have been a fine. Almost all experts, and Twitter, believed the court would force him to buy, meaning Twitter absolutely wouldn't discuss a partial settlement, even if that had been put on the table which it wasn't (unless something happened during the court case that shifted the odds so far towards Musk looking likely to win that at that point he would be the one not interested in a settlement). And there's no legal basis for the judge to suggest or order a settlement. Either Musk is right and the court would have ordered the contract breached (and perhaps fines on top for one or both sides), or Musk is wrong and he has to fulfil the contract he signed and buy the company at the price agreed. If a fine were possible as a middle ground, Musk would still be pushing for that option.
  - Analemma_ 4y ago
    I don't know if that's a guarantee. The Chancery Court is interested first and foremost with keeping commerce running smoothly; they would've been aware that Elon didn't want Twitter, and ordering a company to be bought/owned by a hostile entity which hates it is not exactly conducive to commerce. There's a chance they at least would've ordered him to choose between specific performance and a huge-ass fine. It's all a moot point now though.
    - iudqnolq 4y ago
      > The Chancery Court is interested first and foremost with keeping commerce running smoothly At a very high level, that's true. But at a slightly less high level they do this by guaranteeing predictability over fairness. And at a low level they do that through a lot of very specific implementation details people spend their lives studying. So the level of abstraction you're operating at isn't very useful for this kind of prediction.

noirbot 4y ago

I'm not actually sure they would have made him go through with it vs. just pay some large fine to Twitter if he was insistent on wanting to get out. The issue is the road to get to that point would have run through a LOT of discovery and legal wrangling that was already starting to drag out some suspicious-looking stuff. Maybe it's all nothing, but even so, fighting anything in court is a punishment of its own.

swores 4y ago
There's basically no chance it would have been a fine. Almost all experts, and Twitter, believed the court would force him to buy, meaning Twitter absolutely wouldn't discuss a partial settlement, even if that had been put on the table which it wasn't (unless something happened during the court case that shifted the odds so far towards Musk looking likely to win that at that point he would be the one not interested in a settlement). And there's no legal basis for the judge to suggest or order a settlement. Either Musk is right and the court would have ordered the contract breached (and perhaps fines on top for one or both sides), or Musk is wrong and he has to fulfil the contract he signed and buy the company at the price agreed. If a fine were possible as a middle ground, Musk would still be pushing for that option.
- Analemma_ 4y ago
  I don't know if that's a guarantee. The Chancery Court is interested first and foremost with keeping commerce running smoothly; they would've been aware that Elon didn't want Twitter, and ordering a company to be bought/owned by a hostile entity which hates it is not exactly conducive to commerce. There's a chance they at least would've ordered him to choose between specific performance and a huge-ass fine. It's all a moot point now though.
  - iudqnolq 4y ago
    > The Chancery Court is interested first and foremost with keeping commerce running smoothly At a very high level, that's true. But at a slightly less high level they do this by guaranteeing predictability over fairness. And at a low level they do that through a lot of very specific implementation details people spend their lives studying. So the level of abstraction you're operating at isn't very useful for this kind of prediction.