According to wall street journal, discussions took place on Sunday between Twitter and Elon Musk. Initially opposed to the takeover of the social network by the American billionaire, the board of directors of Twitter is now studying its offer.
Will Elon Musk win his standoff with the current management of Twitter? The hypothesis gained momentum this weekend, as the American firm entered into discussions with the American billionaire with a view to finalizing an agreement in the coming days, according to the wall street journal. The two sides met on Sunday to discuss a possible takeover of Twitter by Elon Musk, but “there is no guarantee that they will reach an agreement”specifies the American daily.
Always according to wall street journal, Elon Musk met last Friday in private with several shareholders of the social network to defend his takeover offer, while repeating that his proposal was to take it or leave it for the board of directors of the American company. As a reminder, the boss of Tesla and SpaceX proposes to pay $54.20 per share, which would value Twitter at $43 billion.
In this context, it has also secured a financing plan of 46.5 billion dollars to complete the transaction. This additional step caused Twitter to reconsider its position to open the door to negotiations, according to the wall street journalwhile the microblogging site’s board of directors immediately reacted to Elon Musk’s hostile takeover bid by triggering a so-called “poison pill” measure to complicate the life of the American billionaire if he were to detain 15% stake in Twitter.
Musk tries to rally shareholders to his cause
Elon Musk’s meeting with shareholders has put the social network’s management up against the wall, since the boss of Tesla plans to go directly through them to buy back their shares, so as to free himself from the board of admin of Twitter. Several shareholders, like Thrivent Asset Management, which holds a stake of around 0.4% in Twitter worth $160 million, have already rallied to the billionaire, according to the wall street journal.
But even if Elon Musk got significant shareholder support for his takeover bid, he would need to find a way around the “poison pill” deployed by the board. Hence the interest of the discussions initiated in recent hours to reach an agreement… Regardless of the outcome of the talks, the billionaire has “committed to addressing free speech issues” of the platform. The latter is now under pressure, when it must publish its results for the first quarter on Thursday.