He spoke on stage, essentially off the record, but a source in the room told CNN’s chief media correspondent Brian Stelter that Musk tripled down on his decision to try to pull out of the deal and claimed it’s all about bots. “Musk originally said he was going to fix the bot issue,” Stelter told Reliable Sources on Sunday. “The same problem he says is now preventing him from doing the deal.” New York Times reporter Lauren Hirsch said there has been an interesting turn of events since news of Musk’s offer broke. The stock market “basically fell off a cliff,” including Tesla shares, which Musk was likely relying on to fund much of the deal. That may be part of the reason Musk seemingly cast doubt on whether his takeover bid would go through — almost from the moment he made it. “He was throwing daggers out there and then he was leaving, and we never knew exactly what his intent was,” Hirsch said. At least until Friday, when Musk’s lawyer tweeted a letter saying he was pulling out of the deal because the social media platform was “in material violation of multiple provisions” of the original agreement. Twitter is fighting back, vowing to take Musk to court. And some have questioned whether Musk’s concerns about bots are just an excuse to get out of the deal. Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bubb said it’s hard to tell what his true motivations are, but admitted that Musk is an “eccentric character.” “I’m kind of fascinated by the implications of his announcement that he got involved in American politics very quickly,” Babb said. Twitter was seen by some as a “left-wing elitist organization” that was now about to be taken over and reshaped by a libertarian conservative. One potential beneficiary of Musk’s Twitter takeover, former President Donald Trump, who was banned from the platform after the Jan. 6 violence on Capitol Hill, recently took the stage at a political rally in Alaska and called Musk a “bulls–t artist” “. calling his decision to back out of the deal with Twitter “rotten”. One of the big questions now is what will happen to Twitter, from its employees to its ad revenue and stock price. The saga has been going on since April and workers still don’t know who their boss will be, said Insider’s chief media correspondent Claire Atkinson. “If you’re thinking about advertising on the platform, you want to know, ‘Is this product right?’ Atkinson said. “And what are their rules?” Stelter said bots are undoubtedly a problem for Twitter, though it’s not yet clear how widespread they are. But Musk may be more affected by them than the average user. “I suspect what’s going on here is that Musk has a very different experience on Twitter than the average user,” Stelter said. “He is overwhelmed by the BS responses and spam.”
