No. Musk has repeatedly been accused of doing so by morons who seem to have no idea what pump and dump means. Perhaps there’s some kind of agenda there?
Yeah, I’m thinking the agenda is “reality”. Musk himself said (and I quote) “ I might pump, but I don’t dump’:” His third largest holding is Bitcoin, after Tesla and SpaceX. Oh wait, but then he sold 10% of his Bitcoin “to prove that it wouldn’t move the market”. Meanwhile his groupies, I mean acolytes ran out and bought Bitcoin at a price higher than he did, pushing up the value of his holdings.
Hi there, I’m Goofyhoofy. I’m playing the part of the moron in this drama.
My guess is that he is now out to destroy the Twitter deal. There is no way that a mere 5% of the Twitterverse is fake accounts (his sudden stalking horse), and he knows it. Two things going on: the market is tanking, which means he can re-enter at a lower price, even after paying a breakup fee, as Intercst notes. Moreover, he is pledging his Tesla stock for a fat part of the acquisition price (so he doesn’t actually have to sell it), but those pledges are generally made in real dollars because the lenders don’t want to accept the volatility risk. With Tesla shares also tanking, he faces a ‘silent’ margin call and would have to pledge even greater numbers for an asset which is currently devaluing.
So he kills the deal, hoping for a mulligan and an even fatter pitch, acquisition wise. I would surmise that it is extremely difficult to persuade him of anything he doesn’t already believe, but I wonder if the ‘everyone will pay to use Twitter’ theory has gotten some pushback from any insiders he does bother to listen to.?