Elon Musk's decision to pull away from the Twitter deal indicates that the ups and downs of the deal are here to stay for longer. With Twitter having expressed its intent to head to the courtroom, a long-drawn legal battle is not beyond the ambit of possibility. The way in which the world's most popular microblogging website fell at the whims of the world's richest man is shocking and disappointing. Musk has cancelled the USD 44 billion deal broadly on two grounds — breach of agreement by Twitter as it allegedly failed to provide genuine information around spam accounts; and a recent firing of senior employees by the company without consulting Musk. However, it needs to be pointed out that the Twitter deal, at no point in time, appeared to be a serious business for Musk. The Tesla CEO started buying Twitter's shares in January this year. His stakes grew considerably by the initial week of April, and Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal announced Musk's inclusion on Twitter board. On April 9, things took a sharp turn as Musk publicly expressed his intent to buy the company. By mid-April, Musk offered his USD 44 billion deal and everything was sealed even before May could arrive. Notwithstanding Twitter's poison bill, the breakneck speed with which the deal progressed indicated only the lack of seriousness of the company in making due assessments. The developments gave an impression that it was Musk's money that was driving the process. His unpredictability, his previous row with the company and a probable ill-intention — all seemed to have been cascaded by the power of money. Then, the breakneck speed with which the deal has collapsed now, with Musk posting laughing images on Twitter itself, is not a good sign by any account. It sums up the level of seriousness with which Musk was pursuing the deal. Even if the Tesla CEO had a flashing ambition of owning the world's most popular microblogging website at some point, his finances were visibly constrained. He initially sold Tesla shares worth around USD 8.5 billion and raised USD 7.1 billion to finance the deal from a few entities. Apart from these, there was no clear disclosure of finances on this front. Did Musk come to a late realisation that the deal might not be fruitful for him? Possibly. The "extraordinary potential" of boosting free speech and democracy, which the billionaire saw in Twitter, has been lost in the woods it seems. He is no more concerned about safeguarding the "future of civilisation"! As a matter of fact, the Twitter deal turned out to be a complete chaos, and blaming any single party will be akin to speaking the half-truth. Twitter — or the global noticeboard as it is popularly known — has an overwhelming and ever-increasing user base. While both Musk and Twitter may have to face each other in Delaware Court, the prospects for Twitter's 229 million users hang in limbo. In the court (if Twitter approaches) the battle will be between the two disputed parties. And experts say, Twitter may be strongly placed to win the case. The options before Twitter are to claim either a USD 1 bn break-up fee from Musk or seek for the "specific performance" — the completion of the deal. In cases involving similar disputes, Delaware court has a better record of going for the break-up fee compensation. In a way, the making and breaking of the Twitter deal has been a mockery of business transactions at a very high level. It forces one to wonder if a person with big bucks should be allowed to, advertently or inadvertently, play with the experiential future of 229 million people. It is true that business transactions don't always go the intended way but, more than that, the Twitter deal fiasco is a case of lacking seriousness, compromised actions and undue bypassing of protocols. It will certainly instill an element of scepticism in similar future deals.