It was in 2001 when Elon Musk and his brother flew to Russia; their goal was to buy Russian rockets and start SpaceX. Though Elon Musk couldn’t land the deal, he left thinking, ” I think we can build a rocket ourselves.”
A few years later, on March 24, 2006, Elon Musk tested his own rocket, which he built by reading books. However, Falcon 1 couldn’t make it into space.
What Elon Musk didn’t know was that only three days earlier, on March 21, 2006, a company was founded. It was the same company that would be hauling Musk to court.
Twitter.
Twitter has officially filed the lawsuit demanding the $44 Billion that Elon Musk “promised” to them. Twitter says Musk has “violated his obligations” to the original merger deal.
While on the hand, Musk reasoned that Twitter fired higher-ranking officials along with 33% of the Talent acquisition team.
According to him, this infringed Twitter’s obligation to preserve “substantially intact the material components of its current business organization.”
Also, Elon’s tussle with Twitter over “spam accounts” on the platform has been going on for several weeks. The lawyers of Elon Musk allege that Twitter didn’t respond to multiple requests regarding the matter.
Now the situation is that either Musk will have to acquire Twitter for $44 Billion or compensate $1 Billion, as per the merger documents.
As the matter reached court, the situation became nasty. While Twitter got an early win when the judge ordered that the lawsuit should go to a five-day trial in October, their lawyer ignited the fire by calling Elon Musk a “committed enemy.”
Twitter’s lead counsel William Savitt said, “Musk has been and remains contractually obligated to use his best efforts to close this deal. What he’s doing is the exact opposite; it’s sabotage.”
While Elon Musk has backed out from the deal, Twitter has already started the process of procurement. Reportedly, on Friday, the company sent a letter to its shareholders.
“We are committed to closing the merger on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk,” the Friday letter articulated. “Your vote at the special meeting is critical to our ability to complete the merger.”
It is not the first time when Elon had started something but later backed off from it. The world’s richest man also has several controversies and uncompleted ideas under his hat, for example, the Russian bargain.
When Russians called Elon “Little Boy”
Reportedly, Musk was ready to purchase three ICBMs for $21 Million. But when he reached Russia, he found Russians asking $21 Million for each ICBM (reportedly).
Jim Cantrell, his partner told Esquire that it was a crazy experience. “They said, ‘Oh, little boy, you don’t have the money?”
Social Media for doctors
When Elon was starting out, he and his brother Kimbal pondered the possibility of starting a social media website for doctors.
The idea, if executed in 1994, would have made Musk Brothers loads of profits.
Ashlee Vance, an American business columnist, says, “This wasn’t meant to be something as ambitious as electronic health records but more of a system for physicians to exchange health information and collaborate.”
Fired while on Honeymoon
When Elon was at Paypal, they used UNIX-based systems. He didn’t like the idea of using this software and suggested shifting to Windows.
It was before 2001, the era when Windows was considered as the software for financial institutions. While UNIX, on the other hand, was considered best for technical, scientific, or security-sensitive operations.
Dotcom Bubble burst & the bicker with Twitter CTO over operating software led to Elon Musk getting fired as CEO of Paypal. Musk was on his honeymoon with his then-wife Justine when he got the news.
Over the course of many years, Elon has added numerous failures to his portfolio. But they will always be outweighed by his successful ventures.
He might be one of the most controversial billionaires on the planet, but he is also one of the most innovative ones. Whatever the outcome of the lawsuit is, one thing is sure that this is not the last controversy of Elon Musk.