Elon Musk declined to comment on his collapsing Twitter acquisition deal during his marquee address at the exclusive Sun Valley conference Saturday morning.
The world’s richest man avoided discussing the matter when he took the stage at the annual Allen & Co. gathering, which took place less than 24 hours after he notified the Securities and Exchange Commission of his intention to withdraw his $44 billion bid to buy the social media platform. Musk took part in the closed-door session alongside OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, one of his professional and personal allies, who asked the Tesla CEO about the state of the deal.
Cameras are not permitted inside the exclusive conference’s events, and thus, direct quotes from Musk were not made available to the public. Attendees, however, confirmed to numerous media outlets that the billionaire tech innovator refused to speak about the state of the deal, which fell apart in recent weeks.
ELON MUSK NOTIFIES TWITTER HE IS TERMINATING ACQUISITION
Instead, according to sources present at the final day of the conference, Musk used his time at the Idaho gathering to outline his vision for colonizing Mars and boosting birth rates on Earth. The Tesla chief referred to his investment in Mars as a type of “civilian life insurance” policy in case there was a disaster that hits the Earth. He went on to argue that the red planet would become necessary as a platform for human life when the sun eventually burned out.
Musk also took aim at President Joe Biden during his remarks, specifically voicing his displeasure at the current administration for snubbing him and Tesla while promoting its electric vehicle push.
While declining to discuss the Twitter acquisition falling apart, the SpaceX chairman and CEO did take some digs at the social media platform while onstage, a person who attended the talk told Bloomberg. Musk reportedly reiterated his view that Twitter needs to be more transparent about its user data and griped about the site’s permanent ban on former President Donald Trump.
While he believed Trump deserved a “time out” from the platform after the Jan. 6 Capitol riot, Musk said he disagreed with Twitter’s decision to place a lifetime ban on the former president.
The comments on Twitter’s user data echo the billionaire’s complaints in his Friday SEC filing as he accused Twitter of misrepresenting the number of spam bots on its platform.
“Although Twitter has not yet provided complete information to Mr. Musk that would enable him to do a complete and comprehensive review of spam and fake accounts on Twitter’s platform, he has been able to partially and preliminarily analyze the accuracy of Twitter’s disclosure regarding its mDAU,” the SEC filing reads, using an initialism referring to monetizable daily active users.
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“While this analysis remains ongoing, all indications suggest that several of Twitter’s public disclosures regarding its mDAUs are either false or materially misleading.”
For its part, Twitter has maintained that it would fight to make Musk go through with the purchase and stood by its claim that only 5% of its users are spam bots.
“The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement,” Twitter board Chairman Bret Taylor tweeted minutes after the filing went public. “We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.”
