Elon Musk rejects $15bn offer from FTX’s Sam Bankman-Fried to co-buy Twitter

The founder of FTX Crypto Exchange, Sam Bankman-Fried, offered to buy Twitter alongside Elon Musk, but the world’s richest man rejected the offer, preferring to acquire the firm alone.

Bankman-Fried’s advisor, Will MacAskill, was reported to have sent Musk a text to discuss about the acquisition of Twitter with the FXT founder. The new information emerged from the legal battle between Musk and Twitter.

Ripples Nigeria had reported that Twitter filed a lawsuit against Musk, to force the billionaire to buy the social media company as agreed between both parties, after he tried to terminate the deal.

Musk had offered to buy Twitter for $44 billion, but pulled out after accusing the management of the social networking site of breaching their contract by not providing user data for him to confirm the actual figure of spam accounts.

The Tesla Chief Executive Officer had claimed that the spam accounts are more than the less than five per cent claimed by Twitter. He alleged that the company misinformed the public, and his decision to buy the social media platform was based on the information.

Read also: Elon Musk, Jack Dorsey, two others to testify at Twitter acquisition dispute

However, Twitter denied his claim of fake accounts being more than five per cent, and sued Musk, to force the $44 billion acquisition. The court trial is set to commence on October 17, 2022.

Meanwhile, with both sides conducting depositions and making discoveries, text messages, such as that between Musk and MacAskill are being made public in line with the court proceedings.

The text messages revealed that Bankman-Fried offered to support Musk with $15 billion, according to MacAskill, but the ex-girlfriend of the Tesla boss, Grimes, told him the FTX boss could contribute about $5 billion.

Grimes, who is a Canadian singer-songwriter, described Bankman-Fried as “an ultra genius” to Musk in April. But all these were not enough to convince Musk to acquire Twitter with Bankman-Fried.

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