Tesla Inc TSLA chairman Elon Musk proposed deferring his $44 billion Twitter Inc TWTR Acquired months after Russia invaded Ukraine, arguing that “if we’re headed for World War III, there wouldn’t be any point in buying Twitter,” according to Business Insider reported.
What happened: In a court hearing on Tuesday, Twitter’s attorney reportedly quoted Musk’s May 8 private chats with a banker morgan stanley, as the tech giant tried to argue that Musk’s continued attempts to back out of the deal, citing concerns about bots, were “all smokescreens.”
According to Twitter’s lawyer, Musk reportedly quoted the Russian president in his private chat Wladimir Putin‘s forthcoming speech in May, saying: “Let’s just slow down a few days.”
“Putin’s speech tomorrow is really important. It won’t make sense to buy Twitter when we’re going into WW3,” he said SpaceX said the CEO, according to the report.
On the 77th anniversary of Russia’s victory over Nazi Germany, Putin said in a speech that his decision to invade Ukraine was the “only right decision”.
Musk’s attorney said the characterization of the texts in court was “utter nonsense, as the full-text chain shows.”
Why it matters: In early July, Musk backed out of his deal to buy the microblogging platform after alleging that Twitter shared false and misleading information with him.
The two parties are imprisoned litigation initiated by Twitter, arguing that Musk is in breach of contracts and that his only motivation for getting out of the deal is personal financial concerns.
Price promotion: Tesla closed Tuesday’s session up 1.56% at $274.42 Gasoline Pro Data. Twitter shares closed marginally higher at $38.65 a share.
Continue reading: The Putin government said it would secretly warn of a deep recession in Russia, while the economy minister issued an upbeat forecast
