Twitter Embraces Musk—Will He Live to Regret It?

Wow. It took Twitter’s board less than two weeks to traverse all five stages of grief—from denial to bargaining to acceptance—and reach a deal with Elon Musk for control of Twitter. In the end, there really was no alternative. Twitter’s routinely disappointing performance, both as a stock and as a business, truly made Musk’s offer the “best path forward for Twitter stockholders,” as chair Bret Taylor said.

That said, Musk may come to rue the day he made this deal. Owning Twitter is likely to be a lot tougher than negotiating to buy it. The biggest near-term risk is the economy. If the recent sell-off in the bond market is any indication, we may be on the verge of a recession. That should worry Musk. In a recession advertisers—who are already wary about Musk’s plans to relax Twitter’s content moderation policies—typically cut spending. As Snap indicated last week, advertisers have already pulled back a bit, thanks to macroeconomic headaches like supply chain constraints and inflation.