Twitter buyout: What Binance CEO, who backed deal, said about Elon Musk’s decision to walk away

Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao.

In May, Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, had backed Elon Musk's bid to acquire Twitter with $500 million. Now that Musk has moved to withdraw from the deal, it is still standing by him.

Binance Chief Executive Officer Changpeng Zhao tweeted on July 24 that he will support "whatever Elon decides."

"It (Twitter) might be slightly over priced," Zhao said in response to a tweet asking him to buy the social network. "But will support whatever Elon decides. There is a time to lead, and a time to follow."

Twitter's board had announced in April that it had reached a agreement to sell the social network to Musk for $44 billion.

But in the following months, there were many twists and turns in the deal. Musk repeatedly accused Twitter of not being transparent with him about the number of spam accounts on the platform.

On July 8, Musk had a notice sent to Twitter that he wanted to back out of the deal to acquire the social network. Soon after that, Twitter announced it will sue Musk and make him honour the deal.

Twitter took its case to a court in Delaware. The trial in the matter is set to begin in October.

Twitter's revenue has suffered because of Musk's chaotic  bid.

On July 22, the company announced that it had missed expectations because of "advertising industry headwinds... as well as uncertainty related to the pending acquisition of Twitter by an affiliate of Elon Musk".

"Twitter is on a rowboat in the middle of a storm," news agency AFP quoted an analyst as saying. "Twitter is now in the unenviable position of convincing advertisers that its ad business is solid."