Elon Musk may not deliver On the Twitter takeover he promised after all.

It’s not the first time he’s abruptly shortened, backed down, or changed course after making a grandiose promise of innovation. In fact, it’s not the first time he’s done this in the past six weeks, during this specific set of negotiations with Twitter.

For Musk — serial entrepreneur, controversial celebrity, ultimate cyber-flyer and the world’s richest man by some counts — he suddenly hit the brakes. Technology acquisition worth $44 billion With a vague tweet, well, just another Friday.

“Twitter deal temporarily on hold Pending account details back that fake/fake accounts already account for less than 5% of users,” Tesla and SpaceX CEO Books early Friday morning In a post on the social network he was destined to buy it in another way. Attached is a link to an article published by Reuters 11 days ago detailing how the platform’s current administration recently linked the proliferation of spam accounts – a pet issue for Musk and one of them. He hinted that he would deal with it If the app is taken private – at less than 5% of daily active users who can monetize.

More than two hours later, he replies to himself: “He’s still committed to the acquisition.”

Twitter shares tumbled to nearly $40, indicating strong doubt on Wall Street that the deal will ever go away. Meanwhile, shares in Tesla jumped 7%, to $786.50, having fallen more than 25% from the time Musk began selling $8 billion in the company to fund the Twitter deal.

Musk’s issue with Twitter has been marked by reversals and false starts from the start. When it was revealed on April 4th acquired a 9% stake In the social network, this seems to be the extent to which he is involved; He was presented, after all, as a passive investor, which means he was prevented by US securities law from pursuing control of the company.

However, two days later, he Submit an update: In fact, he would be an active investor after all.

To further complicate matters, Musk’s initial acquisition was soon followed by gossip from both Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal that Musk would be. Join the company’s board of directors (and capped his stake at 14.9% in the process).

“I’m excited to share that [Musk] To our board! Agrawal tweeted, to which Musk replied: “I look forward to working with him [Agrawal and the] Twitter board! “

or not. By April 11 Musk came out.

By the time finally catch He made his big move – Attempt to make Twitter private at $54.20 per share – It wasn’t clear what his plan was, or if he had one. Analysts were skeptical that the bid would lead anywhere, as traders would, with the shares remaining well below the bid price. Maybe it was musk, too. “I’m not sure I’ll actually be able to get it,” he said during an interview at a TED conference.

But by April 25 – the same month he first announced his 9% stake – Twitter’s board approved the offer. Agrawal assured the staff that the layoff was not planned; Analysts start thinking About what this means for digital speech; Musk said he would allow former President Trump, who is currently banned, to do so counting in the application.

Now all this is on hold. second. (Twitter declined to comment, and Musk does not have a press office.)

Unless Musk’s tweet is another hoax. Bloomberg financial columnist Matt Levine wrote Friday that the “temporary suspension” is “nothing,” noting that it might have been a gambit to force Twitter to renegotiate at a lower rate or risk an ugly legal battle.

For observers of musk and musk, these are familiar cycles.

Here is a partial list of the promises and predictions that Musk failed to keep:

Tesla semi truck

On November 11, 2017, Musk announced that Tesla would build an electric semi-truck, rolling out strict specifications regarding efficiency and range. The company began receiving deposits from potential customers. Five years later, Tesla has not announced any firm plan to build and deliver semi-trucks.

Tesla pickup truck

On the same day, Musk announced that Tesla would sell a pickup truck, which he said later claimed, It would be “a truck better than an equivalent F-150 and a sports car better than any normal car [Porsche] 911.” The company has been taking deposits on what it calls Cybertruck since 2019. Until now, The car with weird angles It’s only present in the prototype, though Musk recently said the company plans to start production next year in Austin, Texas.

New Roadster

As an added surprise at the semi-truck event, which was held at SpaceX’s headquarters in Hawthorne, an attractive sports car called the Roadster was driven in front of a crowd that included Amber Heard, Musk’s friend at the time. Musk later said that the car – a radical update to the first Tesla Model that was shown in 2008 – might be. Powered by jet engines That would allow her to fly. The company started by accepting $250,000 in deposits. Although the musk will continue send a roadster into space, So far, no plans to actually build and sell the car have been announced.

Network of independent taxis

In April 2019, Musk told a Wall Street audience that there would be 1 One Million Autonomous Tesla Robotics Published by 2020. Although competitors like Waymo and Cruise have launched limited-scale robotaxi networks, Tesla has done nothing of the sort.

fully self-driving

In 2016, Tesla began selling a feature called fully self-driving which, six years later, is still not capable of fully autonomous driving. It costs $12,000 a year.

brain chips

Musk has said in several different places that his brain-chip company Neuralink could one day stop epileptic seizures, restore limb function, fix speech impediments, treat Alzheimer’s disease and bring sight to the blind. The company has not announced any serious progress in any of these claims, and neuroscience experts have announced it suspicious about how realistic they are. However, earlier this year, the company admitted that eight monkeys had died while experimenting with brain chips.

and others

Musk’s long list of unfulfilled promises and unaccountable predictions includes: an entire network of solar-powered supercharger stations; Store backup battery at Supercharger locations affected by power outages caused by the California wildfires; Production of 1000 solar roofs per week; 1 hour response time for body work in Tesla service centers; a solar battery factory in Nevada; Tunnels with vehicles on electric skates that can transport fans to Dodger games at 150 mph; And recently, a Humanoid robotic creature To be presented “hopefully next year”.

Then, of course, there was the infamous Mask allegation that had legal effect “Finance Guaranteed” To make Tesla special in 2018 at $420 a share. If the Twitter deal proves to be vaporware, that episode will resemble a form of unintended prophecy.