Mary Pintea – Staff Writer

mvp5879@psu.edu 

The Elon Musk-Twitter deal is not over yet. 

The Tesla Chief Executive has been given until Oct. 28 to buy the social network in order to avoid a trial, which was triggered by Musk abandoning the deal in late July. As the October court date came closer, Musk re-committed to buying the corporation. 

Judge Kathaleen McCormick gave Musk until 5 p.m. Eastern time to close the deal or neglect it and begin the trial. Since the deal closed the first time, Musk has been eerily silent—an indicator that he is seriously considering it once again. 

Initially, Musk’s comments after backing out seemed positive, even going as far to say that the platform has great potential—which was shocking after he claimed that the corporation was misleading investors. 

The $44 billion deal seemed to be heading in a positive direction—until Musk said that he plans to cut 75 percent of Twitter’s employees. While job cuts have been expected regardless of the deal, Musk’s total percent of planned cuts was far more extreme than what Twitter had planned. Though a serious cut would generate a stronger free cash flow and higher profitability, a large cut could also set Twitter back years. 

Experts, nonprofits, and even Twitter’s own staff have explained to Musk that other aspects of his plan, including pulling back investments on content moderation and data security, could seriously hurt Twitter and its users. If content is left unregulated, the platform could easily become overrun with harmful content and spam—which would drive users away. Though Musk has stated that he will deal with harmful content and spam if he becomes owner of the company, he has not revealed what that would entail. 

Twitter has told staff that plans for such a large layoff are not in the books, despite Musk’s comments.