Twitter says Elon’s attempt to end his $44B buyout is “invalid,” leaving the social biz between a rock and a Musk place

Cancel order... Easy for pizza. Harder when your order is a $44B merger with a public company. In case you've been living under a SpaceX rocket: Elon Musk is backing out of his bid to buy Twitter — or at least he's trying to. A quick timeline of the saga:

• Mid-April: After becoming Twitter's largest shareholder with a 9% stake, Elon offers to buy the rest of Twitter's shares at a 38% premium to their price.
• Late April: After a few weeks of "omg Elon wants to buy Twitter I'm so sad/happy" drama, Musk reaches a deal to buy Twitter for $44B.
• Early May: Musk announces plans to boost Twitter's revenue and make it a "free speech" platform. But never mind: the deal's on ice as Elon investigates the # of Twitter bots.
• Late May: Elon says Twitter undercounts bots on its platform, claiming that 20% are "fake/spam accounts." The deal can't move forward till he gets more info.
• Now: Elon’s moving to terminate the deal over the bot thing, but Twitter is "committed to closing the transaction" at the agreed price — and has reportedly hired lawyers to sue. Yesterday Twitter called Elon’s attempt to terminate the deal “invalid.”

Twitter-finger jitters... This situation is a big #facepalm, especially for Twitter shareholders. Twitter stock soared in April after Elon agreed to buy it at a premium of $54.20/share — which would make Twitter worth $44B. The stock’s dropped 16% since Thursday, giving Twitter a $25B market cap.