Ask HN: Legal experts: Can Musk really back out of the Twitter deal?

1 pointsby hoddervor 4 Jahren3 comments

To the M&A legal experts on this board: given the specific performance clause, Twitter disclosure that DAUs are estimates (and could in fact be higher), and stated intent of Musk to clean up the bots on Twitter when he announced a pseudo hostile takeover, is it actually possible that he can walk away from this deal using bots as an excuse to avoid a the general tech valuation drop to secure a better deal? Or would a Delaware judge laugh in his face and force specific enforcement?

There is a large merger arb on this if he is in fact on the hook for $54.20 which seems highly likely. I'm wondering what hackernews legal experts think.

3 comments

ntsdav561vor 4 Jahren

Patrick Boyle (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Boyle_(financier)) on this deal:

+ Part 1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QXxeyOVpnCU + Part 2 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SfXoCj4TLk

Part 2 - Patrick has some comments about the legality of Musk backing out.

icedchaivor 4 Jahren

The market tells you what you need to know: If it was highly likely, the stock price would be higher than it is now.

hoddervor 4 Jahren

Below is Matt Levine's summary: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-06-06/elon-h...

There is $14 a share in the trade currently if specific performance has any real world enforceability.