ELON Musk’s bid to buy Twitter is a handshake away from closing according to experts close to the matter.
The Tesla boss and 11-person Twitter board could finalize the acquisition as soon as today – but reports warn the deal could fall apart before the ink is dry.
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The acceptance of Musk’s bid would be a shocking reversal on a deal that looked to be dead in the water.
A Saudi Arabian prince with considerable stake in Twitter rejected Musk’s bid as too low before the board even convened.
The company attempted a to swallow a ‘poison pill‘ – a business strategy for preventing hostile takeovers by diluting the new party’s shares – to try stop Musk or make the buyout more expensive for him.
But, right now, it seems as though Musk’s “best and final offer” of $43billion stands and Twitter executives are seriously considering accepting.
Reports were weighing whether it were actually possible for Musk to move the funds across his portfolio to buy Twitter at $54.20 a share.
The price point is hardly arbitrary as Musk is an open fan of jokes relating to 420, a number long associated with pot-smoking.
The New York Times reported that Musk reached an agreement with investment bankers at Morgan Stanley to loan Musk about $25billion to help finance the deal – the rest Musk would put up in cash.
Musk’s more laissez-faire approach to censorship will bring changes to Twitter in the event he does buy the platform and take the company private.
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“I’m not saying I have all the answers here. I do think that we want to be very reluctant to delete things and be very cautious with permanent bans. Timeouts are better,” Musk said during a Ted Talk.
The more libertarian approach and scaling back of moderation could alter the way the app is used.
Republicans have interpreted this stance as an opportunity to nudge Musk into reinstating former President Trump’s Twitter account – but Trump himself said he would not come back to the bird.
“A top priority I would have is eliminating the spam and spam bots and bot armies that are on Twitter,” Musk added during the same Ted Talk.
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