David Bridges
- Mark Zuckerberg said it’s “really unclear” how the saga between Twitter and Elon Musk will play out.
- In 2022, Musk has gone from planning to buy Twitter to ditching it to offering to buy it again.
- Zuckerberg and Musk have traded jabs in the past and have a longstanding feud.
Amid Elon Musk’s ongoing court battle with Twitter and his abrupt U-turn on the $44 billion purchase last week, even Mark Zuckerberg is confused.
“I don’t know. I think this is another one of these things that it’s really unclear how it’ll actually turn out,” the Facebook founder said in an interview with The Verge when asked how he saw the deal playing out, as well as if Twitter would be better off with Musk at its helm.
“I think it’s interesting as a saga, like you’re saying, but I think even at this point, it’s not actually clear what’s going to happen,” Zuckerberg added.
A spokesperson for Meta did not respond to a request for comment from Insider.
Zuckerberg’s probably not the only one who’s confused. Musk’s Twitter saga is enough to give anyone whiplash. The Tesla CEO has continually changed his mind regarding his intentions toward Twitter over the past year.
At the beginning of the year, Musk rapidly accrued Twitter stock — quickly becoming the social media company’s largest shareholder. When news of Musk’s shares was revealed in April, the billionaire accepted an invitation to join Twitter’s board of directors only to reject it days later in favor of buying the company outright. Less than a month after offering to buy the company, Musk tweeted that the deal was “on hold” and attempted to walk away from the company entirely in July, less than three months after his initial offer.
But, Twitter was quick to sue Musk over the botched deal. Over the past few months, the two parties have been locked in an intense court battle, but Musk waved the white flag last week when he agreed to purchase the social media site for its original price. Now, the court case has been put on hold as Twitter and Musk’s lawyers continue to iron out the details of the acquisition. The two parties have until October 28 to settle the deal or return to the court battle.
Musk’s Twitter purchase could put him in direct competition with Zuckerberg, who has offered to buy Twitter in the past. While Zuckerberg and Musk operate within different business spheres in tech, Musk has been quick to take digs at the Facebook founder. In April, Musk compared Zuckerberg’s ironclad control of Meta to a monarchy, dubbing him “Mark Zuckerberg the 14th” — a nod to King Louis XIV, the longest reigning monarch in history.
Musk has also said he’d be careful to avoid permanent bans or censoring if he owned Twitter and has criticized Facebook for how it handled the siege on the Capitol on January 6, 2021 by banning public figures like Trump.
The two billionaires have a longstanding feud. In 2016, Zuckerberg issued a public statement saying he was “deeply disappointed” in SpaceX after one of the company’s rockets destroyed a Facebook satellite. Meanwhile, Musk has said Facebook gives him “the willies” and repeatedly called for people to delete the Facebook app.
Maya Kensington
