Elon MuskImage source, Reuters
Image caption, Elon Musk is ranked by Forbes and Bloomberg as the world's richest person

There was a cool night in San Jose.

The world's richest person was going to be hosted by a hastily organised meeting at an apartment building.

It was a big event for the company. Musk became the largest shareholder of the company. He was rumored to want to join the board.

It wasn't what he was expecting when he got to the venue.

He told Mr Musk that this was a good place to have a meeting.

He said that they were looking for an apartment near the airport and there were animals there.

The meeting was well attended.

It was announced that Mr Musk would be joining the board.

There was more to come. There would be one of the most crazy, on-off deals in Silicon Valley's history.

At the beginning of April, Mr Musk seemed content with his position on the board of the company.

Private meetings between him and the CEO of the social media company did not go well. The two didn't know how to fix the platform. Mr Musk wasn't happy.

He is said to have told Mr Taylor that talking with Parag wouldn't fix the site. astic action needs to be taken.

Twitter CEO Parag AgrawalImage source, Getty Images
Image caption, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and Mr Musk did not see eye to eye

On April 14th, the billionaire publicly stated that he wanted to buy the social networking site.

He had the option of taking it or leaving it offer. The board tried to prevent Mr Musk from buying the company by creating a poison pill.

There was a change of heart in this story. On reflection, the board decided that they would accept the offer and on 25 April, they did.

Mr Musk said yes.

Mr Musk said that the social networking site had lost it's way. As the world's "town hall", he said, it needed to place free speech above everything else.

He said in an interview that he didn't care about the economy at all.

Tech stocks fell in the weeks and months after the deal was done. The value of the social networking site waned. Many analysts began to wonder if Mr Musk had overpaid for the company.

He began to ask a different question - how many real accounts were on the social networking site.

The world's richest person had been complaining about the number of bots on the platform.

He kept asking for data about how many real users it had.

According to the figures shared by executives, less than 5% of daily active users were bots. Mr Musk seemed to be enraged by it.

Mr Musk replied with the poop symbol after Mr Agrawal explained how the company had reached that figure.

Elon Musk's poop emoji reply to Parag Agrawal shown on a smartphone screen with Musk's Twitter page in backgroundImage source, Getty Images

The deal wasn't going well. On 8 July, Mr Musk said he wanted to walk away from the deal.

Is he trying to get a better price for the company or is he walking away? It was difficult to say.

It wasn't having any of it on the micro-blogging site. The agreement to buy the company was legally binding and unpicking it now was not an option.

The court date in Delaware was set to decide if Mr Musk would have to buy the company.

He was given a lot of information about how many people it had.

Mr Musk accused the company of fraud and said it could have many times as many bots as it had claimed.

The public criticism was hurting the social networking site. Advertisers were starting to wonder how many ads were being shown to real people, since most of the revenue comes from adverts.

The process was making it hard to stay focused in the office. Some employees liked the idea of Mr Musk becoming their boss. His purchase would be a disaster for the company's goals, according to many people.

When another remarkable twist occurred, Mr Musk, the judge, and the journalists were all ready for a court case.

The deal was back on after Mr Musk made all sorts of accusations.

The creation of X, the everything app, was made possible by buying the social networking site, he said.

He had changed his mind. He might have thought that his court case would be lost. He was due to give a deposition a few days before announcing his reversal. Perhaps he didn't want to have a long and revealing cross-examination.

You can understand why the champagne corks weren't popped. The company was committed to closing the deal on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr Musk.

The court case was asked for to be put on hold. Mr Musk's lawyers said that they wouldn't accept a reply.

The deadline for Mr Musk to come up with the money was sundown on October 28th.

Billions would be stumped by his friends. Mr Musk sold some of his stock in the company.

At times, the deal looked intractably broken, but now appears to have been concluded.

  • Social media
  • Elon Musk
  • Twitter