Step 2 of Elon

April 15 – Twitter adopts a poison pill provision to prevent the Musk acquisition. A poison pill allows current stockholders to purchase additional shares at a discounted price, diluting the shares owned by Musk and making it more expensive for him to buy the company. In an announcement, Twitter said the poison pill will be triggered if any individual or entity acquires at least 15% of the company's shares.

April 21 – Musk says in a securities filing that he has garnered commitments of about $46.5 billion in financing for a possible Twitter acquisition.

April 25 – Twitter accepts Musk's offer to acquire the company and values the deal at $44 billion, according to an announcement from the company.
MORE: Twitter says it will sue Elon Musk to complete the $44B merger he just rejected and is "confident" it will prevail

April 29 – Over a three-day period after Musk and Twitter reach a deal, and he sells about $8.5 billion worth in Tesla stock to help finance the bid.

May 4 – Musk secures more than $7 billion in financing for the deal, including commitments from Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, venture capital firm Sequoia Capital and cryptocurrency exchange Binance, according to a securities filing.

May 6 – In a pitch deck for investors, Musk says he will quintuple Twitter's revenue by 2028, increasing annual earnings to $26.4 billion, the New York Times reports.

May 10 – Musk says he would reverse Twitter's ban of the account that belongs to former President Donald Trump. The remarks from Musk were made virtually at an auto conference.

May 12 – Twitter announces a temporary hiring freeze, pending Musk's acquisition; and two top executives leave the company.

May 13 – Musk tweets that the Twitter deal is "temporarily on hold," citing concern over what he says is the prevalence of bot and spam accounts on the platform.

Along with his tweet, Musk posts a Reuters report about a public filing from Twitter earlier in May that said fake accounts made up less than 5% of users on the platform. Apparently skeptical of the finding, Musk says he wants "details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users."
Roughly two hours later, Musk says he's "still committed" to the deal.

At the time, market analysts told ABC News the worry over fake accounts could serve as a pretext for Musk to bargain a lower price for the acquisition or abandon the effort altogether.

May 26 – Twitter shareholders bring a class-action lawsuit against Musk over alleged stock manipulation tied to the tumultuous acquisition process. At the time, Twitter's stock had fallen more than 12% since Musk announced his bid.

June 6 – Musk threatens to pull out of the deal if Twitter doesn't provide additional information about the prevalence of bots on its platform. In a statement, Twitter said it had been sharing information with Musk "in accordance with the terms of the merger agreement."

July 8 – Musk moves to terminate his acquisition of Twitter, pointing to the issue of fake accounts.

"Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to 'make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter's platform'" and did not receive it, a securities filing said.

In an email on disclosed in a securities filing on Sunday, an attorney representing Twitter rejected Musk's effort to abandon the acquisition. "The purported termination is invalid," the attorney wrote, arguing that Musk had "knowingly, intentionally, willfully, and materially breached the Agreement."

"As it has done, Twitter will continue to provide information reasonably requested by Mr. Musk under the Agreement," the attorneys added.

July 12 – Twitter sues Musk in Chancery Court in Delaware to force him to complete the deal.

"Musk refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests," Twitter said in the lawsuit. "Musk apparently believes that he — unlike every other party subject to Delaware contract law — is free to change his mind, trash the company, disrupt its operations, destroy stockholder value, and walk away."
Musk did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the lawsuit.

If permitted to abandon the deal, Musk may be forced to pay a $1 billion termination fee.

July 19 – A Delaware court determines that the trial in a lawsuit brought by Twitter against Elon Musk should take place in October, granting an expedited timeline for the case.

Aug. 23 – News breaks that former Twitter Head of Security Peiter Zatko alleged in a federal whistleblower complaint that the social media giant had numerous wide-ranging information security system lapses, according to a copy of the complaint made public.
In response, Twitter blasted Zatko, who worked at the company from November 2020 to January 2022, saying he was spreading a "false narrative about Twitter" and was fired for "ineffective leadership and poor performance."

Oct. 4 – Musk proposes the completion of a deal to acquire Twitter, reversing a monthslong effort to terminate the agreement. The proposal would complete the deal at Musk's original offer price of $54.20 a share at a total cost of roughly $44 billion, a person familiar with the proposal told ABC News.

Oct. 28 – Musk closes a deal to acquire Twitter on the final day before the Delaware Chancery Court trial would have moved forward. Some of Twitter's top executives were fired, including CEO Parag Agrawal, chief financial officer Ned Segal, chief legal officer Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sam Edgett, according to a source.

Musk said that he will forgo any significant content moderation or account reinstatement decisions until after the formation of a new committee devoted to the issues.

"Twitter will be forming a content moderation council with widely diverse viewpoints," Musk tweeted. "No major content decisions or account reinstatements will happen before that council convenes."