Rattled and uncertain of its future, Twitter stumbles on

Under the cloud of Elon Musk's buyout bid, Twitter is left in limbo

Anxious employees, wary advertisers and hamstrung management: Twitter is limping along as it waits to learn how the fight over Elon Musk's buyout bid will end.

Just days before the first court hearing in Twitter's lawsuit seeking to force the Tesla boss to close the $44 billion deal, the firm is stuck in limbo.

The engineer spoke of employees departing and a "climate of uncertainty that does not leave one with a peaceful state of mind." 

But there's been nothing normal about Musk's unsolicited bid that he's now backed away from, saying Twitter has obfuscated on the number of fake accounts on the platform.

"Musk's repeated disparagement of Twitter and its personnel, create uncertainty... that harm Twitter and its stockholders," the firm's lawyers argued in their lawsuit lodged this week.

A judge has set the first hearing in the case for Tuesday in a court in the eastern state of Delaware.

"Twitter is facing a huge image crisis, and confidence in its leadership is wavering," eMarketer analyst Debra Williamson told AFP. "But whether the Musk situation has affected its revenues is unclear."

Angelo Carusone, president of watchdog group Media Matters, thinks the damage is already done because Musk has been a frequent critic of content moderation.

Carusone said that in early May, at an annual marketing event where companies negotiate large advertising deals, Twitter was "not able to give advertisers any clarity or confidence" that it would continue to be safe showcase for them.

The San Francisco-based social network cannot afford to lose customers. 

The group will capture less than one percent of global ad revenue in 2022, according to eMarketer, compared to 12.5 percent for Facebook, 9 percent for Instagram and nearly two percent for booming upstart TikTok. 

- 'Twitter can't meaningfully respond' - 

Instead, a court battle is building to "end either with Twitter being owned by an unhappy investor who decided he didn't want it after all, or with Twitter on its own and weaker than it was before this all started," Williamson added.

"At least Facebook can respond to current threats, even if they're responding poorly, they can respond," said Carusone, the Media Matters president.

The social network's lawyers have blamed Musk for withholding consent for two employee retention programs "designed to keep selected top talent during a period of intense uncertainty generated in large part by Musk's erratic conduct." 

Parker Lyons, a financial analyst at Twitter, went so far as to tweet several memes that took aim at the firm's board for its deal with Musk.

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