Kevin O’Leary says he’s betting on Elon Musk amid Twitter drama
Kevin O’Leary just weighed in on Elon Musk’s controversial Twitter deal – and he’s taking sides for the world’s richest person.
The “Shark Tank” investor told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” Thursday that he predicts Musk’s $44 billion offer to buy Twitter will go through — and that it will end up going in Musk’s favor.
“I happened to be watching [Musk] forever, and I think this guy is Teflon man,”[ads1]; O’Leary said. “And he can obviously multitask. I’m betting on him in this deal. When all this is over, I think he’s going to get a good result.”
Musk, who has a net worth of $219.1 billion as of Friday afternoon, has been locked in a legal dispute with Twitter’s board of directors over a proposed takeover bid since April. The battle, over Musk’s attempt to back out of the deal after initially agreeing to buy the social media platform for $54.20 a share, hit a new escalation this week when Musk said he wanted to avoid litigation by returning to his original agreement.
Twitter refused to oblige, and a Delaware judge ruled that Musk has until Oct. 28 to close the acquisition if he wants to avoid a lawsuit.
O’Leary predicted that Musk will actually take ownership of Twitter when the dust settles, saying he believes the Tesla boss will significantly improve the user experience of the social media platform once he’s in charge. Currently, Twitter is falling behind, O’Leary said: Many users don’t regularly post on it anymore, and with the rise of video content on other platforms, it’s losing popularity.
“It’s a terrible company,” O’Leary said. “I use the platform as well, and I look at the metrics versus all the others [social media companies] including Tiktok and LinkedIn and Instagram and Facebook. It’s the worst when it comes to getting your message out.”
In the fourth quarter of last year, Twitter had an average of 217 million daily users, according to Twitter’s annual report for 2021. In comparison, Meta’s platforms combined had an average of 1.93 billion users in December 2021.
O’Leary said he thinks Musk is overpaying at 40% in the deal, but added that the high number may be worth it: By owning Twitter, Musk can use his influence and popularity on the platform to financially benefit other companies, such as Tesla and SpaceX.
“[Tesla] is the only car company on earth that pays nothing for advertising,” O’Leary said. “He [advertised] that on the back of Twitter and other social media platforms. Very few people get to own their own unregulated network.”
Disclosure: CNBC owns the exclusive off-network cable rights to “Shark Tank.”
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