Twitter has directed employees not to publicly comment on the Elon Musk acquisition after the Tesla CEO declared he wanted out of the deal late Friday.
As reported by The Verge, a memo sent to staff by Twitter’s general counsel, Sean Edgett, asked staff to “refrain from Tweeting, Slacking, or sharing any commentary about the merger agreement.” The Verge obtained a copy of the memo, which you can read in full below:
Team,
Today we received a notice of purported termination from Elon Musk, and the Twitter Board issued the following statement in response (see our Chairman Bret Taylor’s Tweet here):
“The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
Given that this is an ongoing legal matter, you should refrain from Tweeting, Slacking, or sharing any commentary about the merger agreement. We will continue to share information when we are able, but please know we are going to be very limited on what we can share in the meantime.
I know this is an uncertain time, and we appreciate your patience and ongoing commitment to the important work we have underway.
Musk alleged that Twitter failed to provide information about the number of bots on its platform, which appears to be the basis for Musk pulling out of the deal. However, as has been pointed out repeatedly, that argument is pretty bogus considering Musk’s team kept asking for more details about bots and spam and Twitter kept providing the information, although not always as quickly or in the way that Musk wanted. Casey Newton has an excellent explanation of the strategy to bury Twitter in paperwork and get Musk out of the deal in his Platformer newsletter.
Following Musk’s attempt to pull out of the deal, Twitter announced it would sue to ensure the deal goes through as per the original agreement.
After the news broke, The Verge notes that Twitter employees were quick to mock the situation on Twitter, which may have prompted the memo.
Source: The Verge
