Twitter saga continues

The ink on the reports of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover bid isn’t even dry and the stories keep rolling in by the hour. Last week Musk offered 43 billion dollars (at around $54 per share) to take twitter private and the board later that day turned to the poison pill in order to prevent a hostile takeover. “The pill cuts off Musk’s ability to make a tender offer over the heads of the board,” Brian Quinn, a professor at Boston College Law School, told Barron’s. “If he wants to buy the company, then all roads lead through the Twitter board. He can’t go directly to the shareholders with his offer.”

Former CEO Jack Dorsey’s criticism of Twitter’s board (“consistently been the dysfunction of the company”) comes as Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla TSLA, 2.21% and SpaceX, submitted an “unsolicited” bid to buy Twitter for $43 billion. Musk has been buying equity in the social-media giant throughout most of 2022, and now he says he wants to take over the company in its entirety — Musk currently owns 9.2% of Twitter.

Sources say that he could partner up with others to sweeten the deal and make it easier to buy out the company. Many of Twitters employee’s (current and former) balk at the idea saying on the condition that they not be named said the mercurial Musk would decimate Twitter’s TWTR, 4.75% name, especially if he were to re-admit controversial figures jettisoned from the platform like former President Trump, should he be successful with his unsolicited bid. Musk as the face of Twitter cheapens a brand carefully cultivated over years, groused one employee, who said, “The idea of a figure like Musk taking over is horrifying for the company’s reputation.”

Musk says he wants Twitter to have an “open-source algorithm” to try to improve trust in the platform. Musk finished his thoughts about Twitter by saying he is more concerned about his views of the platform and free speech, and less about the business of Twitter.

 


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