This is the saga of the year in business circles, one in which the main protagonist is Elon Musk, the richest man in the world.
This saga revolves around the social network Twitter (TWTR), a platform where trendsetters and opinion makers meet.
The saga has already had many twists and turns. To recap, Musk disclosed on April 4 that he owned more than 9% of the microblogging website. He said that he would be a passive investor, meaning he would not try to influence the company's strategy.
But the next day, he changed his position and became an active investor. He and the company signed an agreement that gave him a seat on the board. In exchange, he promised not to acquire more than 14.9% of Twitter.
A few days later, Musk canceled the agreement and launched an offer to buy the entire platform for $44 billion, or $54.20 a share.
On and Off Agreement
On April 25, the two parties came to an agreement. But almost three months later, on July 8, Musk abruptly withdrew his offer, saying that Twitter had lied to him about the number of fake accounts on the platform.
On July 12, Twitter filed a complaint, asking the Delaware Chancery Court to compel Musk to respect the initial commitment and close the deal. A five-day trial was set for Oct. 17.
But on Oct. 4, Musk said he was putting his offer back on the table without changing the price, even as falling financial markets indicated a fair price below $44 billion.
Musk’s change of course came after an information-gathering process between the two parties that resulted in the publication of personal text messages from the billionaire with his tech bros, relatives and billionaire peers.
Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick has given Musk and Twitter until Oct. 28 to finalize the deal. Things seem on the right track.
You can read our guide to the unconventional battle between Musk and Twitter here.
Now, the billionaire has just said publicly that he was overpaying for Twitter -- but he thinks he can unlock the platform's potential.
'Obviously Overpaying for Twitter'
"Obviously, myself and the other investors are obviously overpaying for Twitter right now," Musk said during Tesla's third-quarter earnings' call.
"The long-term potential for Twitter in my view is an order of magnitude greater than its current value."
The Twitter stock price at last check was $52.42, compared with Musk's $54.20 offer.
Many experts expect Musk to sell additional Tesla shares to fund the acquisition.
The billionaire wants to use the social network to accelerate his project for a super app offering multiple services, modeled after China's WeChat.
"Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app," the billionaire posted on Twitter on Oct. 4.
He has hinted that his vision for Twitter was comparable to what he envisioned for X, a financial-services company he co-founded in 1999 in Palo Alto, Calif. X merged in 2000 with software company Confinity.com. The merged company became PayPal.
His model, WeChat, mixes social media with payments, games, messaging, booking a flight ticket, ordering food, shopping etc.
"There’s no WeChat equivalent outside of China,” Musk told Twitter employees during an internal all-hands call on June 16. "You basically live on WeChat in China. If we can recreate that with Twitter, we’ll be a great success.”
"I am excited about the Twitter situation," Musk said on Oct. 19, adding that the platform has "sort of languished for a long time, but has an incredible potential."
