| Good morning, Marketer, when is a deal not a deal? The other shoe dropped last week when Twitter, fairly predictably, filed a lawsuit in the Delaware courts to compel Elon Musk to complete his agreed acquisition of the social media platform. On the one hand, a contract is surely a contract, and Musk’s reason for walking away seems so thin as to be implausible. There are fake accounts on Twitter? Really? And it’s hard to get an exact count? But on the other hand, forcing someone to buy a company they no longer want and which they are now publicly trashing (Reuters describes Musk as “colorful,” which is kind) doesn’t bode well for the company’s future. It’s hard to see a good outcome here for Twitter and that’s what should give us pause. It’s easy to think of Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, for example, almost as public utilities — as well as marketing platforms, the utility of which will endure. But it’s really a handful of private individuals pulling the strings. Kim Davis
Editorial Director | 