On October 6, local time, Judge Kathaleen McCormick of Delaware Chancery Court ruled that the lawsuit between Tesla CEO Elon Musk and social media Twitter will be suspended, and required the two sides to complete the deal by 5 p.m. on October 28. If the deal is not completed by then, the trial will resume in November.

According to CCTV News, citing the Associated Press on October 6 local time, Musk's lawyer said that Twitter rejected Musk's original $44 billion purchase of his company and has asked a Delaware court to stop the upcoming trial. It is reported that Musk said on the 4th that he plans to buy Twitter at the original price of 44 billion dollars.

It is worth noting that if Musk's acquisition of Twitter is successful, former US President Trump will usher in the opportunity to return to Twitter. Since being banned last year, Trump has been unable to use Twitter to interact with his followers. But in May, Musk said it would be "incorrect to ban Trump from speaking... I will lift the permanent ban." Although Trump has made it clear that he will not return, some industry insiders believe he "couldn't resist the temptation of a man with nearly 90 million follower accounts at his peak."

Musk's back-and-forth with Twitter

On April 4, according to a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk owned 73.49 million shares of Twitter's common stock, or 9.1 percent of the common stock, making him Twitter's largest shareholder. Twitter's stock jumped as much as 30 percent on the news before closing up 27 percent, its biggest one-day gain since going public. Since then, Twitter's board of directors announced the appointment of Musk as a director of the company.

On April 25, Twitter announced that it had reached an acquisition agreement with Musk, agreeing that Musk would wholly acquire Twitter at a price of $54.20 per share, totaling about $44 billion (equivalent to more than 310 billion yuan) in cash. Seven banks, including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Corp. and Barclays, agreed to provide Musk with about $13 billion in debt. According to the Wall Street Journal, the debt includes $6.5 billion in leveraged loans, a $500 million revolving credit line, $3 billion in secured bonds and $3 billion in unsecured bonds. It is worth mentioning that since then, the US stock market has begun to decline, especially the share price of high-risk technology companies, so the preference of banks for technology stocks is also decreasing.

The deal is expected to close this year and turn Twitter into a privately held company. But then the story began to flip - Musk "backtracked." On July 9, Musk announced that he was terminating the deal because Twitter had materially violated several terms of the agreement, including the issue of fake accounts. Twitter then took Musk to court to force him to continue with the previous acquisition agreement.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said Musk's announcement to shelve the Twitter deal was like a "circus act" and could eventually turn into a "horror show." At the time, he also said that Musk's approach would lead to three results: first, the deal failed; Second, Musk lowered the purchase price; Third, Musk walks away from the deal and pays a $1 billion breakup fee.

On October 6 local time, Elon Musk's lawyers filed a motion asking the court to suspend the legal process to ensure that the deal goes ahead. The filing states that Musk is "willing to close the transaction at $54.20 and that the debt financing parties are working together to fund the transaction, which is expected to close on or about October 28."

On the same day, Judge Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Chancery Court ruled that it would suspend litigation over Musk's acquisition of Twitter and give both parties until 5 p.m. on Oct. 28 to complete the deal. If the deal is not completed by then, the trial will resume in November.

Planning a new product?

In August, when a Twitter user asked Musk if he had ever considered creating his own social platform, he replied, "X.com." Earlier that month, at Tesla's annual shareholder meeting, Musk said he had a very grand vision for the X, "something very useful for the world."

The X-counter is undoubtedly China's wechat, which Musk once described as a "super app" that combines many different services, including messaging, social media, payments and food orders. "If you're in China, you're living on wechat." Musk said it does everything, kind of like Twitter, plus PayPal and other apps put together, and the interface is great. It really is a great app, there is no such software outside of China.

While Twitter is a relatively small platform with about 300 million monthly users and has never experienced the exponential growth of products like TikTok or Instagram, it is considered a powerful social software and is widely used by politicians, world leaders and businesses to share comments and opinions. On Wednesday, Musk tweeted that "acquiring Twitter will likely accelerate the creation of X."

When he first announced his intention to buy Twitter, Musk said he wanted to open up the platform to allow more "free speech" and fewer restrictions - a tricky choice for any social media company, as such software needs to comply with various regional regulations and laws.

For now, Musk has not outlined his plans for X. But analysts say he will face numerous challenges.

Ivan Lam, a senior Research analyst at Counterpoint Research in Hong Kong, said that in a way, WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, TikTok and almost all apps are trying to "become super apps."

"It's really hard to be a super app." 'he said in an interview.

Forrester principal analyst Wang Xiaofeng, who focuses on digital marketing and engagement strategies in the Asia-Pacific region, echoed this view, noting that the industry has become more saturated in recent years.

Wang went on to say that companies trying to expand in the sector could also face regulatory headwinds. "It would certainly be harder for Twitter or future X to do that in the US under stricter antitrust laws."

Source: Brokerage China