Judging Freedom - Elon Musk threatens to ABANDON $44billion Twitter deal

Episode Date: June 6, 2022

Elon Musk threatens to ABANDON $44billion Twitter deal. #Elon #Musk #twitterSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, everyone. Judge Andrew Napolitano here for Judging Freedom. Today is Monday, June 6, 2022. It's about 2.50 in the afternoon. Late last night, on a Sunday night, Elon Musk announced that he's having second thoughts about his deal to purchase Twitter for $44 billion and change. And Twitter responded by saying, we're going to compel you to go forward with the deal. I'm laughing because remember, initially Twitter did not want to sell them because they don't like his politics. Then he made an offer, which seemed too good to be true. He did his due diligence. They signed the offer. It's a binding contract, and Twitter's all in favor of it. The shareholders are in favor of it. The board of directors are in favor of it, and now Mr. Musk is having second thoughts. I'm unhappy about this because I've been pitching myself to become his content officer because as a libertarian, I wouldn't take down what anybody posted unless, of course,

the posting of it was a federal or a state crime, which is a very narrow category of speech. But back to Musk. When you're going to purchase something, like you're going to buy a house, you have the right to have the house inspected. You have the inspection done before you sign the contract. And then if there's something wrong, and you don't want to buy the house, or you want this thing to be repaired, the seller has to repair it. If you sign the contract first and have the inspection second, you may be stuck with a great dispute over whether or not the owner even knew of the defect and who's going to pay for it. That's apparently what happened with Musk. So he wants to buy Twitter. He has what's called an opportunity for due diligence. He could send dozens, hundreds,

thousands of accountants and inspectors to review Twitter's books to see if they really do have the number of clients that they claim, to see if they really are making the money that they claim. He had the opportunity for due diligence. He apparently engaged in some, signed the contract, and now wishes he engaged in more. Even though I like him and I'd love to see him on Twitter and I'd love to see the people that he kicked off be put back on Twitter. Elon, if I may, it's too little, too late. If Twitter goes to court to force you to cough up the 44 billion, it'll be the largest forced contract in the history of the American judiciary. But I do believe, and I haven't seen the contract, but if the language is standard, unless they aggressively, actively deceived you and hid something from you and made material misrepresentations to you, they're going to win.

But if you didn't go deep enough because you didn't have the time or you didn't want to spend the money or your due diligence people just didn't think to go down this rabbit hole or that rabbit hole, you're going to be stuck with Twitter, and they're going to have your $44 billion. Judge Napolitano for judging freedom.