Washington [US], April 26 (ANI): Twitter on Monday (local time) confirmed the sale of the company to Tesla Chief Elon Musk for USD 44 billion. Under the terms of the deal, shareholders will receive USD 54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter stock they own, matching Musk’s original offer and marking a 38 per cent premium over the stock price the day before Musk revealed his stake in the company, CNN reported.
It further reported that the deal caps off a whirlwind news cycle in which the Tesla and SpaceX CEO became one of Twitter’s largest shareholders, was offered and turned down a seat on its board and bid to buy the company — all in less than a month.
“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. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” he added.
The deal comes after Musk revealed last week he had lined up USD 46.5 billion in financing to acquire the company, an apparent turning point that forced Twitter’s board to seriously consider the deal. The board met Sunday to evaluate Musk’s offer.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal in a statement said “Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”
According to TechCrunch, multiple news outlets had reported that Twitter’s board has actually considered Musk’s funded offer over the weekend, with the corporate governing body’s attitude towards the offer changing following Musk’s outlining of his plan to source the funds to make real his USD 46.5 billion offer to buy the company.
After initially meeting up on Sunday, Twitter’s board entered into negotiations with Musk on Monday morning in order to hammer out additional details. Though reports stress that the deal has not yet been finalised and can still fall out however it’s kind of amazing that it’s even gotten this far.
The tech billionaire’s bid was initially seen by critics as undervaluing the company significantly despite it representing a premium on the current Twitter stock price. Further, Twitter’s board had even instituted a ‘poison pill’ policy to try to block Musk from acquiring a much more significant ownership position in the company, as per TechCrunch.
On April 4, 2022, Musk announced that he had purchased 9.1 per cent of Twitter which made him the largest shareholder of the social media platform and also sent the company’s stock price soaring.
Twitter responded by offering him a board seat, a move that would have restricted him to owning just 15 per cent of the company. At first, he said yes but later changed his mind and said no.
