Elon Musk carried a sink into Twitter on Wednesday as deal nears close
Elon Musk arrives at the In America: An Anthology of Fashion themed Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York, May 2, 2022.
Andrew Kelly | Reuters
With just a few more days left to complete his acquisition of Twitter and stave off a new court date, billionaire Elon Musk walked into the company’s San Francisco office on Wednesday with what appeared to be a porcelain bathroom sink in his hands.
“Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!” the Tesla and SpaceX CEO tweeted with a video of his entrance.
A person at the company confirmed to CNBC that Elon was visiting today, and noted that there is some internal concern about what will happen to people on foreign-worker visas. This person, who declined to be named discussing internal matters, said that employees are trying to keep working despite all the attention being paid to the deal, and despite reports that Musk could gut the place with massive layoffs. Some employees say they feel like if he buys it, he can “burn it all down if he wants to.”
Staff in the office got a brief heads up about the visit, according to an email shared by reporters from CNN and Bloomberg.
The sender, whom Bloomberg identified as Twitter Chief Marketing Officer Leslie Berland, wrote that Musk would be in the office this week “meeting with folks, walking the halls, and continuing to dive in on the important work you all do. If you’re in SF and see him around, say hi!”
The email also said employees would hear directly from Musk on Friday. A Twitter spokesperson declined to comment on the report or on Musk’s tweet.
Earlier, Musk changed his description on the social media service, where he has more than 110 million followers, to “Chief Twit.”
Musk has until 5 p.m. Eastern Time on Friday to complete his deal to buy Twitter or again face the proposition of going to trial. Twitter sued Musk when he tried to get out of their $44 billion merger agreement by claiming Twitter had not been forthcoming about spam and bots on its platform, which he claimed would amount to a material adverse effect. Twitter has denied this.
A Delaware Chancery Court judge set the Friday deadline after Musk said he would be willing to buy Twitter after all. Twitter, not taking Musk on his word, wanted the court to remain involved. The judge ended up postponing the original trial set for last week and gave the parties until the end of this week to close to deal, or else she would set new trial dates for November.
CNBC’s Lora Kolodny contributed to this report.
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