Well, that escalated quickly. Twitter officially announced that it has accepted a $44 billion offer from Elon Musk to take the company private.
After an eventful weekend between Elon Musk and Twitter’s board, this morning it it looked like a possible deal between the two sides could be announced sometime today. And now, it’s official.
According to PR Newswire, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal stated the following in response to the deal being made: “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.”
On Sunday, negotiations had begun between Musk and Twitter regarding his offer to buy the company and take it private. And according to Reuters, Twitter had been expected to accept Musk’s initial offer of $43 billion. This sudden turn of events appears to be due in large part to Musk revealing his financing plans last week, which had then resulted in Twitter’s shareholders asking “the company not to let the opportunity for a deal to slip away.”
Reuters also reported this morning the following details about the possible deal reached between Musk and Twitter, all of which turned out to be true:
- The deal amounted to $54.20 per share.
- At the time, the deal had still needed to be recommended to shareholders by the Twitter’s board, and Reuters’ unnamed sources said that it could still “collapse at the last minute.”
- That current iteration of the deal reportedly did not have a provision that allowed Twitter to shop for other bids after signing this deal. But that didn’t mean it couldn’t accept an offer from someone else. Twitter could have done that, but it would have had to pay a “break-up fee” to Musk.
All of this occurred not long after Twitter had adopted a poison pill strategy in response to (and ostensibly to defend against) the offer they’re now expected to accept on Monday. At the time of this writing Twitter is currently at $50.67 per share, according to MarketWatch.
Musk’s last tweet before becoming the new owner of the company seemed to foreshadow the upcoming acquisition:
I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
This story is still developing and we will update it as more details emerge.
