Disappointment for Twitter shareholders: Tech billionaire and Tesla boss Elon Musk no longer wants to buy the short message service.

Twitter now wants to push through the takeover in court, but the shares initially went down.

Shares fell 7.7 percent to $33.98 in early trading on Monday.

Twitter is probably heading for months of uncertainty.

Because even if experts see the company in a better position in the legal dispute, it remains unclear whether one wants to force the richest person in the world to make a takeover that he doesn't want.

In any case, the grueling bickering about the deal is leaving its mark on the short message service.

Musk's lawyers justified the withdrawal with allegedly insufficient information on the number of fake accounts on Twitter.

The company countered that it is committed to completing the sale at the agreed price and plans to go to court for it.

Musk now thinks the price is too high

Analyst Brent Thill from the investment house Jefferies sees the reasons given by Musk as unfounded.

Rather, after the recent price losses of tech stocks, he may have come to the conclusion that he was putting too much money on the table for Twitter.

For weeks, Musks has publicly doubted the corresponding Twitter numbers, which observers interpreted as an attempt to at least lower the price.

At his bid, the deal would be worth more than $44 billion (almost €44 billion), while Twitter was only worth a good $28 billion on the stock exchange at Friday's closing price.

Currently, the market capitalization is just over 26 billion dollars.

For Jefferies analyst Thill, Musk's concerns about staff development at Twitter are at least justified.

The company recently lost a number of important executives.

That and the distractions caused by the takeover squabbles are likely to have weighed on the advertising business.

Should the takeover actually burst, the Twitter price could only bottom out at around $23.50 - also in view of the gloomy economic environment - that would be a third less than the current price.

For comparison, Musk and Twitter leadership agreed on a price of $54.20 per share towards the end of April.

It was already announced in early April that Musk had become Twitter's largest shareholder with a 9.2 percent stake.

The share price rose to $54.57 from just under $40 before the Musk stake was announced.

The shares then fluctuated between around 45 and around 50 dollars for long stretches before they came under more pressure in mid-May.

The reason: Musk had doubted the deal because of his concerns about the number of fake accounts.

Jefferies expert Thill gives a little hope and recalls the takeover of the US jewelry chain Tiffany by the French luxury goods giant LVMH.

The French wanted to call off the purchase after the start of the Corona crisis.

Both companies made allegations.

In the end they came to an agreement and LVMH had to pay less than originally planned.