Another twist in Twitter tale

With only about two weeks to go before a court case over his attempts to withdraw his $44 billion (39 pound billion) offer to buy Twitter, Elon Musk's second U-turn over the deal shows the world's richest man is still full of surprises. His latest decision to resurrect the offer to acquire the social media platform for $54.20 per share is not a huge shock – speculation that he would lose the case was rife. But it is surprising that he has decided to reinstate his original price offered last April, rather than attempting to negotiate a lower figure.

A US court has now postponed the planned court proceedings to give Musk time to gather the necessary funds to buy Twitter. But the unpredictable Musk may still have a few moves left to play. As such, it's still unclear how, when – or even if – the deal will finally complete.

Certainly, nothing seems to be straightforward with Musk. Even at the time he made the initial bid, $44 billion was a huge figure for a company that, throughout its 16-year history, has been unable to consistently turn a profit, even with its large user base. Besides, Musk discovered that even the world's richest person will find it hard to scrape together $44 billion. Another surprise since the deal was made has been the collapse in the value of technology shares.

When announcing the resumption of the deal, he spoke about turning it into a "super app". Such a platform would allow users to undertake a variety of activities, such as making payments, messaging and other activities. This would require users to trust Twitter with their data, however. Users' concerns about how information is used makes handing a lot of data to another app less appealing for many people. The other issue is that there are lots of apps that already do these jobs well, including PayPal, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and Apple Pay.

The outlook for the deal has brightened with the latest news of its revival. But most deals fall through because the parties involved fall out during the negotiations and we've already seen one falling out between the main parties. Indeed a deal is never done until the final document is signed and the money is paid. That is perhaps the lesson from this saga for anyone selling a business.

(Writer is Professor of Practice, Associate Dean, Warwick Business School, University of Warwick; The Conversation)