Elon Musk’s excuse for backing out of Twitter deal was 'World War Three is starting’

dailystar.co.uk:

SpaceX and Tesla boss Elon Musk announced that he planned to buy Twitter - describing the social networking site as “a digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated”.But the billionaire later cooled on the idea, with the official explanation being that he needed more accurate figures on how many real human users were signed up to Twitter, and how many accounts were in fact run by automated bots.But a recently-revealed text message suggests the tycoon’s concerns weren’t about bots - but World War Three. READ MORE: Elon Musk vows to 'focus on useful things for civilisation' and slams media 'supernova'On May 8, Musk texted Michael Grimes, head of global technology investment banking for top financial institution Morgan Stanley."Let's slow down just a few days,” he wrote. “Putin's speech tomorrow is really important.

It won't make sense to buy Twitter if we're heading into World War III.”The text emerged, reports Ars Technica, as part of a legal battle between Musk and the corporation he once planned to buy, with his lawyer Alex Spiro responding to complaints that Musk was responsible for the sale falling through by saying “any businessman would be anxious about the impact of a potential war on the stock market”.Lawyers for Twitter are arguing that Musk had no right to renege on his agreement to purchase the company and that Musk had decided to pull out because "the value of Musk's stake in Tesla, the anchor of his personal wealth, has declined by more than $100billion from its November 2021 peak.”Before the deal fell through, Musk had lined up a reported $46.5billion in financing.