Elon Musk says he is spending less than 5% of his time on the Twitter acquisition deal

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Elon Musk says he is spending less than 5% of his time on the Twitter acquisition deal
Elon Musk.HANNIBAL HANSCHKE /Getty Images
  • Elon Musk said he's spending less than 5% of his time on his Twitter acquisition deal.
  • Musk's proposed takeover of Twitter appears to have damaged investor trust in Tesla.
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Elon Musk wants the world to know his proposed $44 billion takeover of Twitter is not distracting him from his other companies.

"To be clear, I'm spending <5% (but actually) of my time on the Twitter acquisition," Musk said in a tweet Thursday.

"It ain't rocket science!" he added.

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Musk's Twitter deal appears to have damaged investor trust in Tesla.

Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in a note to investors that the Twitter deal has been a "black eye for Musk and Tesla's stock." Tesla stock has fallen almost 29% since Musk announced his bid to acquire Twitter had been accepted amid a wider sell-off in tech stocks.

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Ives also said the "distraction risks" posed by the deal were significant given that Tesla is facing the "worst supply chain crisis seen in modern history," due to COVID-19 lockdowns in China.

Musk said in his tweet he had spent the previous day at Tesla's new gigafactory in Texas. He then travelled to SpaceX's Starbase launch site.

"Tesla is on my mind 24/7," he added.

Elon Musk rounded off the tweet with a meme poking fun at his Twitter takeover bid.

Musk recently declared his proposed deal with Twitter was on hold until he saw evidence of how the company calculates the number of bots on its platform.

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Several analysts said this is likely a ploy by Musk to try to force Twitter back to the negotiating table and get a better price amid a broad selloff in tech stocks.

He may even be looking for a pretext to abandon the deal completely, which will be difficult for him to do without risking litigation.

Twitter's CEO, Parag Agrawal, and its head of legal, Vijaya Gadde, told the company's staff in an all-hands meeting Thursday that despite Musk's claims, the deal will go through at the agreed price, Insider's Kali Hays reported.

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