Billionaire Elon Musk made a cryptic reference to his potential plans to launch his own social media platform on Tuesday night, depending on the outcome of his $44 billion legal battle with Twitter.
Musk, who is attempting to back out of his agreement to buy Twitter due to concerns about spam bots, addressed the possibility in response to a direct question from one of his followers.
“Have you thought about creating your own social platform? If Twitter deal doesn’t come through?” the “Tesla Owners Silicon Valley” Twitter account asked.
“X.com,” Musk replied.
The Tesla CEO did not provide any further information about the website or what he meant by sharing the link.
“X.com” was the domain name associated with a financial services startup that Musk founded and eventually merged with PayPal. In 2017, Musk reacquired the X.com domain name from PayPal and announced that he had re-launched the site — which is currently blank except for a single X in the top-left corner.
The exchange occurred shortly after SEC filings revealed that Musk had sold Tesla shares worth $6.9 billion over the last several days. Musk said the transactions were meant to protect against the need to conduct a “fire sale” in the event he is eventually forced to buy Twitter under the original terms.
“Yes. In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close *and* some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” Musk said.
Musk noted that he was not planning further Tesla stock sales and planned to buy more of the electric car firms shares if he successfully exits the Twitter deal.
The trial to determine the outcome of Musk’s battle with Twitter will take place in Delaware Chancery Court beginning on Oct. 17.
Twitter is seeking to compel Musk to buy the company for $44 billion by court order, while the billionaire’s team has argued the merger agreement should be rendered null because he received faulty information about fake accounts within Twitter’s user base.
Meanwhile, Musk’s legal team has countersued Twitter, accusing the company of fraud and breach of contract.
In its complaint filed in July, Twitter noted that Musk had suggested he could form a rival social media platform around late March of this year as he quietly accumulated a 9.1% ownership stake in the company.
“Meanwhile, on March 26, 2022, Musk spoke with two Twitter directors, Jack Dorsey and Egon Durban, about the future of social media and the prospect of Musk’s joining the Twitter board,” the complaint said.
“Soon after, Musk told Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and Twitter board chair Bret Taylor that he had in mind three options relative to Twitter: join its board, take the company private, or start a competitor,” the complaint added.
On March 26, Musk tweeted that he was giving “serious thought” to creating his own social media platform.
Musk is one of just a handful of Twitter users to amass more than 100 million followers. He frequently uses the platform to share important information about his companies as well as random musings and memes.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
