Elon Musk blames Russia-Ukraine conflict for delaying Twitter's buyout deal

Citing concerns over "World War III", Tesla CEO Elon Musk blamedthe Russia-Ukraine conflict for delaying Twitter's buyout deal worth $44 billion.

Highlighting that the purchase wouldn't "make sense" if a third world war were imminent, the billionaire had allegedly said it'd be wise to "slow down" his Twitter acquisition.

"Their theory about what really happened isn't what really happened," Insider quoted Musk's lawyer as saying.

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In response, Twitter said, "The purported termination is invalid for the independent reason that Musk and the other Musk parties have knowingly, intentionally, willfully, and materially breached the agreement."

This is not the first reason Musk has given for backing out of the deal as he previously claimed he was not informed about a multi-million dollar severance package that was extended to Twitter's departing security chief Peiter Zatko and that the social media company was concealing information about bots and spams accounts on its platform.

In 2017, Musk has tweeted ''China, Russia, soon all countries w strong computer science. Competition for AI superiority at the national level was most likely cause of WW3 imo.''

China, Russia, soon all countries w strong computer science. Competition for AI superiority at national level most likely cause of WW3 imo. — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) September 4, 2017

Pointing out his fears that artificial intelligence would ignite World War III, Musk said he believes Putin's prediction that whoever has the best command of AI would "be the ruler of the world" is indeed correct.

Sounding the alarm over a future AI-fueled doomsday, he added "There have been movies about this, you know, like [The] Terminator. There are some scary outcomes."

(With inputs from agencies)

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