Seven underscores. Seven underscores preceding three words: “It’s the night”. Elon Musk in the night entrusts a cryptic message to Twitter. The latest in chronological order, but similar to the last ones shared in these days in which it is at the center of media and market attention.
The entrepreneur is awaiting a response from the Twitter board that will have to decide whether or not to accept his 43 billion offer for 100% of the share package. But the road seems to get more complicated every day, even though Tesla’s CEO doesn’t seem willing to back down.
A few hours earlier Musk tweeted “Love me tender”, an Elvis Presley song. A tweet came shortly after the board of directors decided to adopt the ‘poison pill’ that allows current Twitter shareholders to buy other shares at a favorable price, hindering any takeovers.
Successful move, at the moment. At least it allowed the board of directors to buy time. From what is learned, the board will decide by April 28 whether to accept or reject the offer, which Musk has already defined as “the best possible, but also the last”.
Social
Why Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter
by Arcangelo Rociola
Musk could put 10-15 billion out of his own pocket
Musk didn’t take board castling well. According to rumors, it seems that he did not expect this reaction. Thanks to the ‘pill’, the board actually decided to prevent any shareholder to own more than 15% of the company’s shares, allowing others to buy other shares, diluting the share of those who want to attempt the takeover in a hostile way. Musk currently has a 9.1% stake and is the company’s second largest shareholder.
Twitter, Musk and the stakes
by Riccardo Luna
Yesterday the New York Post, citing sources close to the dossier, made it known that the entrepreneur would be willing to invest between 10 and 15 billion dollars of his own money to buy Twitter and make the company private. Musk, who is the second largest shareholder of the social network, according to what the newspaper learns, would have contacted Morgan Stanley to raise another 10 billion dollars in debt to complete his lunge. But neither Musk nor Twitter confirmed or denied the news to the American newspaper.
A ‘right’ offer, but not indispensable
Over the days, the financial consultancy companies interviewed by Twitter have defined Musk’s offer as right. But the board could still refuse it, hiding behind the political choice of defending the choice to keep the social network as it is: strong content control in order to give both its audience and advertisers a space as clean as possible from hate speech and violent messages. Policy disputed by Muskwhich instead would like social media to become “the platform of free speech”, making it more similar to Telegram than to large platforms.
On Twitter (almost) nobody wants Elon Musk to buy Twitter
by Pier Luca Santoro
Yet, according to analysts polled by Reuters, the logic of money may eventually prevail. Also on ethical principles: “All these opinions about culture, speeches and democracy take a back seat if the shareholders do not have a concrete benefit”, commented Ann Lipton of Tulane Law School.
That is, even in the face of a very good offer, if the prospect that the current Twitter content policy can yield more than a few dollars per share immediately in the medium term, the board of directors will reserve the offer to the sender. Without worrying about ethics and morals. If it’s not quite the night of the story between Musk and Twitter, the sunset seems to be approaching.