Hot and Cold delves into the emo­tion­al and pro­fes­sion­al tur­bu­lence sur­round­ing Elon Musk’s effort to acquire Twit­ter between April and June 2022, offer­ing a com­plex look into the intri­ca­cies of high-pro­file busi­ness nego­ti­a­tions. At the out­set, Musk was deter­mined to push for­ward with the $44 bil­lion deal, despite the chal­lenges he faced in secur­ing the nec­es­sary financ­ing. His efforts led him to approach sev­er­al poten­tial investors, includ­ing his broth­er Kim­bal Musk, who ulti­mate­ly declined to par­tic­i­pate. Musk found more suc­cess with indi­vid­u­als like Lar­ry Elli­son, who, although not an active Twit­ter user, rec­og­nized the platform’s impor­tance to democ­ra­cy and saw val­ue in Musk’s vision. Along­side Elli­son, fig­ures like Mike Moritz of Sequoia Cap­i­tal and the Binance team offered sub­stan­tial sup­port, sig­nal­ing the grow­ing back­ing for Musk’s ambi­tious plan. Anoth­er poten­tial fund­ing route came from Sam Bankman-Fried, who sug­gest­ed using blockchain tech­nol­o­gy for the deal, but Musk dis­missed the idea, doubt­ing its fea­si­bil­i­ty in address­ing Twitter’s needs in the short term. This episode high­light­ed Musk’s dri­ve to secure funds from diverse sources, reflect­ing the high-stakes nature of the trans­ac­tion.

As Musk moved for­ward with his plans, his skep­ti­cism about the true state of Twit­ter grew, par­tic­u­lar­ly regard­ing the bot issue. His meet­ings with Twitter’s man­age­ment team, includ­ing CEO Parag Agraw­al, who par­tic­i­pat­ed remote­ly due to COVID, left him ques­tion­ing the company’s trans­paren­cy and inter­nal prac­tices. Musk’s pri­ma­ry con­cern was the under­re­port­ing of bot accounts, which he believed was a sig­nif­i­cant issue that Twit­ter had failed to prop­er­ly address. Musk’s sus­pi­cions about Twit­ter’s val­u­a­tion deep­ened, lead­ing him to ques­tion whether the com­pa­ny had accu­rate­ly dis­closed its true finan­cial and oper­a­tional sta­tus. These rev­e­la­tions marked a turn­ing point in the acqui­si­tion, as Musk began to see poten­tial flaws in the deal he had ini­tial­ly cham­pi­oned, push­ing him to reassess the entire acqui­si­tion process. His increas­ing­ly pub­lic doubts about the bot issue exposed deep­er ten­sions, as Musk wres­tled with his desire to make an impact on pub­lic dis­course through Twit­ter, while grap­pling with the com­plex­i­ty of man­ag­ing a glob­al social plat­form with poten­tial inter­nal incon­sis­ten­cies.

Despite Musk’s grow­ing con­cerns, key sup­port­ers remained stead­fast, includ­ing Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, whose endorse­ment pro­vid­ed a sense of sta­bil­i­ty in the midst of Musk’s waver­ing com­mit­ment. Twitter’s board ulti­mate­ly moved for­ward with Musk’s acqui­si­tion plan, despite the uncer­tain­ty that hung over the deal, and antic­i­pat­ed the deal would close by the fall of 2022. How­ev­er, Musk’s per­son­al reser­va­tions about the acqui­si­tion were only ampli­fied by his children’s con­cerns, which added anoth­er lay­er of com­plex­i­ty to his deci­sion-mak­ing process. Dur­ing a vis­it to Twitter’s head­quar­ters, Musk found him­self at a cross­roads, torn between the poten­tial ben­e­fits of acquir­ing Twit­ter for its role in shap­ing glob­al con­ver­sa­tion and his per­son­al doubts about the finan­cial via­bil­i­ty and oper­a­tional chal­lenges it entailed. His inter­nal con­flict became more appar­ent when, in a dra­mat­ic move, Musk declared the deal was “on hold,” cit­ing con­cerns about the spam accounts that Twit­ter had failed to address to his sat­is­fac­tion. This announce­ment led to a sharp dip in Twitter’s stock price and trig­gered legal warn­ings from his advi­sors, who ques­tioned Musk’s pub­lic han­dling of the sit­u­a­tion. Musk’s hes­i­ta­tion, in turn, high­light­ed the unpre­dictable nature of his lead­er­ship style—combining bold, deci­sive moves with moments of doubt that ques­tioned the very foun­da­tions of the deal. His inde­ci­sion also revealed the intri­cate dynam­ics of the tech world, where busi­ness deci­sions are often dri­ven by per­son­al beliefs, pub­lic per­cep­tion, and strate­gic vision, all of which Musk strug­gled to rec­on­cile in this piv­otal moment.

The chap­ter paints a vivid por­trait of the fluc­tu­at­ing nature of high-stakes busi­ness deals, espe­cial­ly when per­son­al ide­olo­gies, pub­lic scruti­ny, and pro­fes­sion­al ambi­tions col­lide. Musk’s roller­coast­er of emo­tions, from enthu­si­asm to skep­ti­cism, mir­rored the broad­er uncer­tain­ties that busi­ness­es face when nav­i­gat­ing major acqui­si­tions, par­tic­u­lar­ly those involv­ing com­plex plat­forms like Twit­ter. His dynam­ic and unpre­dictable approach to nego­ti­a­tions under­scores a larg­er theme: the ten­sion between push­ing for trans­for­ma­tive change and address­ing the prac­ti­cal real­i­ties of man­ag­ing a glob­al enti­ty. Musk’s pub­lic and pri­vate actions illus­trat­ed the chal­lenges of bal­anc­ing per­son­al con­vic­tion with the rig­ors of busi­ness strat­e­gy. Through­out this peri­od, the sup­port and resis­tance Musk encoun­tered under­scored the volatile nature of such deals, where every deci­sion could rip­ple out to affect not only the company’s val­u­a­tion but also its long-term tra­jec­to­ry. In the end, this chap­ter encap­su­lates the emo­tion­al and strate­gic labyrinth that Musk faced in his attempt to acquire Twitter—one that involved a del­i­cate dance of tim­ing, per­son­al belief, investor rela­tions, and the harsh real­i­ties of the dig­i­tal mar­ket­place.