Consultants Sue Twitter for Unpaid Fees

This post started out as one story, but when I started researching, I fell down a rabbit hole of alleged breaches of contract.  They all fit the incredibly simple pattern: one of the parties to the Elon Musk/Twitter litigation hired some company to do work in connection with the Musk/Twitter transaction.  Then, once Mr. Musk (below) owns Twitter, he doesn't pay.

First, on January 20th, Jon Brodkin reported for arstechnica, that Charles River Associates provided consulting services to Twitter in connection with its lawsuit that eventually forced Elon Musk to purchase the company.  Brodkin previously reported that Twitter had not paid over $1 million to Imply Data, Inc. and apparently intended not to pay the remaining $7 million.  Apparently, Twitter simply doesn't respond when its creditors inquire about unpaid invoices.  At one point, it was impossible to reach Twitter for comment, Brodkin reported, because the PR department had been terminated.  I don't know if that is still the case.  We reported on earlier contract breaches here.

Next, on February 3rd, Lauren Hirsch and Kate Conger reported in The New York Times, Musk has also not paid Innisfree M&A Incorporated $1.9 million owed in connection with work it did for Twitter during the acquisition.  The article details other contracts that the company is not honoring.  

Finally, Laurel Brubaker Calkins reported in Bloomberg News on February 9th that Twitter was also not paying Analysis Group Inc. of Boston $2.2 million in fees for consulting services it provided in connection with the acquisition.  Perhaps Mr. Musk doesn't want to pay the people who contributed to forcing him to buy Twitter, an acquisition he seems to be enjoying less and less these days as the bills come due, the platform degrades, and the route to profitability becomes ever more elusive.  Fortunately, The Onion has a slideshow packed with inspired ideas for making the platform profitable, all suitable for a genius of Mr. Musk's calibre.