Elon Musk’s Twitter account, in Washington on April 14, 2022 (AFP/Archives/Olivier DOULIERY)
New episode in the saga around the attempted takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk: the boss of Tesla now claims to have the money necessary to finance the transaction and plans to bypass the board of directors if necessary.
In a document filed Wednesday evening with the American stock market policeman (SEC), the richest man in the world says he has secured nearly 46.5 billion dollars.
He planned to devote 21 billion dollars of his personal fortune, valued by Forbes magazine at 281 billion dollars, to carry out the operation. And he specifies that the bank Morgan Stanley has undertaken to grant him two loans, one of 13 billion dollars and another of 12.5 billion.
He also plans to approach shareholders directly to buy back their shares, without going through the board of directors (CA), as part of a hostile takeover bid.
The entrepreneur made his unsolicited takeover bid last week, but Twitter’s board opposed it by adopting a so-called “poison pill” clause to make the takeover more difficult.
Concretely, if Elon Musk reached 15% of the capital of the company without the agreement of the Board, the latter plans to sell off the shares for all the other shareholders.
“Mr. Musk is likely to choose the hostile takeover route to put more pressure on Twitter’s board with funding already in place,” Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities tweeted.
“The poison pill gave the CA time to try to find a second bidder,” continues the analyst. “Now the soap opera will enter a new phase if Mr. Musk takes this path.”
According to the New York Post, the investment fund Thoma Bravo has also considered making an offer to buy Twitter.
– Unenthusiastic market –
Elon Musk during a press conference at SpaceX’s Starbase near the village of Boca Chica in southern Texas on February 10, 2022 (AFP/Archives/JIM WATSON)
The leader of Tesla and SpaceX did not confirm that he would resort to a hostile takeover, specifying that it was a possibility.
He had already hinted that he was considering this option in several tweets posted over the past few days. In one of them, he quoted the title of the song “Love Me Tender” by Elvis Presley, a reference to the term “tender offer” which means hostile takeover in English.
Mr. Musk offered last week to acquire at a price of 54.20 dollars per share the network from the blue bird, where he has nearly 83 million subscribers and is particularly active. That would value the company at $43 billion, up from about $36 billion currently.
The whimsical boss then said he wanted to make Twitter “the platform for freedom of expression in the world”.
He sharply criticized the moderation of content considered problematic by the social network, advocating more transparent and less strict methods.
He also suggested, in the form of polls to his subscribers, some changes to the network, including the addition of an “edit” button.
The multi-billionaire of South African origin had previously entered the capital of the company to the tune of just over 9%, which made him one of the largest shareholders in the group.
Twitter then offered Mr. Musk to join its board of directors, but he declined the offer.
On Wall Street, Twitter’s stock was not particularly reacting to the latest development. It dropped 0.81% to 46.34 dollars at the start of the session.
© 2022 AFP
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