👉 Background: We all know Elon Musk was in talks to buy Twitter. He'd made an offer, lined up financing and Twitter had accepted... Until some major beef erupted.

👉  What happened: Elon put the deal on ‘hold’ over concerns that Twitter was undercounting the number of bots on its platform. But now, he's done with it altogether! He reckons Twitter hasn’t met its contractual obligations regarding these pesky bots 🤖.

👉 What else: Twitter ain't going down without a fight, having hired a top law firm to sue Musk for something called specific performance, forcing him into the deal. And that's an outcome nobody seems to want.

What's the key learning?

💡Specific performance is a court order that requires a party to a contract to perform their contractual duties. It’s a pretty complex area of law, and there are lots of circumstances that prevent a court from actually making that order.

💡In the world of mergers and acquisitions, courts don’t look too fondly on people that try to back out after agreeing to the deal (like Elon). In fact, companies have been forced to follow through in the past.

💡In 2001, meat processing company Tyson Foods tried to pull out of a big acquisition, but was forced back into it. Now, Elon's facing the same prospect when he just ain't keen anymore.

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