MOSCOW (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 07th September, 2022) The founder of SpaceX and Tesla, Elon Musk, decided to postpone the purchase of Twitter in May 2022 over World War III concerns, waiting for the speech by Russian President Vladimir Putin on the occasion of Victory Day, business Insider reported on Wednesday, citing a court hearing.
On May 8, Musk sent a text message to a banker at Morgan Stanley, saying that he wanted to postpone the purchase because of Putin's speech scheduled for the next day, according to the news outlet.
"Let's slow down just a few days. Putin's speech tomorrow is really important. It won't make sense to buy Twitter if we're heading into World War III," Twitter's lawyer read out Musk's texts during the hearing, as quoted by the Business Insider.
During his speech at the Victory Parade on May 9, Putin spoke about the special operation in Ukraine, the attempts of modern Nazi followers to rewrite WWII history, and also congratulated the citizens on the holiday. The Russian president did not say anything about World War III.
According to Twitter's lawyer, Musk's texts prove that the refusal to purchase the social network was caused by concern for personal finances, not by Twitter's failure to comply with its obligations.
In April, Musk backed from a deal he signed on the acquisition of Twitter for $44 billion. Musk said he decided to abandon the acquisition of the company as he was concerned over the true number of spam accounts. Twitter sued Musk for abandoning the deal, but Musk countersued.
In July, Musk's legal team initially filed a notice to terminate the Twitter acquisition, citing the company's alleged non-compliance with its contractual obligations, including purported inability to provide information needed to complete a comprehensive analysis of spam and fake accounts.
