OPINION: This article may contain commentary which reflects the author's opinion.
Twitter’s board of directors has accepted Elon Musk’s multi-billion dollar offer to buy out the social media platform.
“Twitter on Monday agreed to be acquired for around $44 billion in cash by Elon Musk, just weeks after the tech mogul launched his unsolicited, take-it-or-leave-it offer,” Axios reported.
CONFIRMED: Twitter has officially been sold to Elon Musk for $44 billion.
— Watcher.Guru (@WatcherGuru) April 25, 2022
CONFIRMED: Elon Musk is officially buying Twitter
— Pomp 🌪 (@APompliano) April 25, 2022
"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," Musk said in a statement.
— Kyle Morris (@RealKyleMorris) April 25, 2022
BREAKING: Elon Musk has officially purchased Twitter
— Bitcoin Magazine (@BitcoinMagazine) April 25, 2022
Reports began breaking on Monday morning that Twitter’s board and members of Musk’s team had spent hours negotiating terms and came to a deal.
“Twitter Inc is nearing a deal to sell itself to Elon Musk for $54.20 per share in cash, the price that he originally offered to the social media company and called his ‘best and final’, people familiar with the matter said,” Reuters reported.
“Twitter may announce the $43 billion deal later on Monday once its board has met to recommend the transaction to Twitter shareholders, the sources said. It is always possible that the deal collapses at the last minute, the sources added. Twitter has not been able to secure so far a ‘go-shop’ provision under its agreement with Musk that would allow it to solicit other bids from potential acquirers once the deal is signed, the sources said. Still, Twitter would be allowed to accept an offer from another party by paying Musk a break-up fee, the sources added,” the report added.
On Sunday, it was reported that Twitter changed course on Musk’s multi-billion dollar offer to buy out the social media company.
Musk disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing that he has secured the money to buy Twitter outright.
“Twitter had been expected to rebuff the offer, which Mr. Musk made earlier this month without saying how he would pay for it,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “But after he disclosed last week that he now has $46.5 billion in the financing, Twitter is taking a fresh look at the offer and is more likely than before to seek to negotiate.”
The WSJ report said negotiations between Twitter and Musk are “fast-moving” and that the company is expected to “weigh in on the bid” later this week.
“The potential turnabout on Twitter’s part comes after Mr. Musk met privately Friday with several shareholders of the company to extol the virtues of his proposal while repeating that the board has a ‘yes-or-no’ decision to make,” the report added. “He also pledged to solve the free-speech issues he sees as plaguing the platform and the country more broadly, whether his bid succeeds or not.”
In his SEC filing, Musk reported that he had secured $46.5 billion from three sources to buy the company, including $13 billion from Morgan Stanley, $12.5 billion from other banks, and $21 billion from himself.
Last week, Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary praised Musk’s attempts to purchase Twitter and said he supported the idea of firing the social media platforms board.
During an interview on CNBC’s Squawk Box, O’Leary told co-host Andrew Sorkin that Twitter “is the most miserable investment you could have put your dollars into in social media. It has totally lagged all its other competitors.”
“The best way to look at this is, you gave them a decade, why not get the whacking stick out and just start all over again?” O’Leary proposed. “And that’s what Elon Musk is proposing.”
“The biggest risk for shareholders here, whether you believe in the free speech issue or not, is if Musk goes away,” O’Leary warned. “Then they’re back in the same miserable place they are now. … When you start to try and figure out who should have a voice and who shouldn’t, you’re stepping on the basic principles of free speech in America. And that really doesn’t sit well with a majority of the population.”
“The cost of free speech, the cost to society, is allowing the lunatic fringe to have a voice,” O’Leary said. “And that’s always been the case, back to when they were writing newspapers by hand. You gotta get over that, Andrew.”
The investor wasn’t done yet, he closed the segment by boosting Musk’s bid for the company and calling for Twitter board members to be “fired.”
“It’s horrific what this company has done to their shareholders. I weep like a baby for them. I wouldn’t touch this stock,” he said. “However, if Elon Musk gave me a piece of the deal … I’d back him because of executional performance on everything he touches.”
“The rest of this board and those employees have done a horrifically bad job,” he added. “I think they should be fired.”
