Elon Musk to Buy Twitter After All
Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is back on and he’s agreed to pay the original price of $44 billion. DailyMail.com has more.
A spokesman for the company told DailyMail.com on Tuesday afternoon: “We received the letter from the Musk parties which they have filed with the SEC.
“The intention of the Company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share.”
Regulatory filings on Tuesday revealed that Musk’s attorneys sent Twitter a letter confirming that he planned to buy the company at the original price he proposed – $44billion.
It was a surprising U-turn from the bombastic billionaire, but was prompted by his fear that he’d end up being ordered to buy the company anyway in court.
Musk had been trying to back out of the Twitter deal, claiming the company was hiding how many spam accounts were active on the site. Twitter took him to court to try to force the takeover through.
The judge, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick, recently rejected Musk’s request to delay proceedings. Sources cited by Bloomberg on Tuesday said he feared she would end up siding with Twitter in the matter and force him to buy the company after a highly public, potentially embarrassing trial.
Musk’s new offer to complete the deal is contingent on Twitter halting its lawsuit to force the transaction. Now, with a deal nearing close, Twitter’s share price is soaring.
Trading was halted at 12.10pm on Tuesday after the shares jumped 13% to $47.93, and the stock closed at $52, an increase of 22% on the day.
Great news, obviously.
Worth reading in full.
Stop Press: The Telegraph reports that Musk plans to turn Twitter into an “everything app”:
After a u-turn over his takeover, the Tesla billionaire said: “Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app.”…
Mr Musk, the world’s richest man who is worth $220bn, gave no details of what his “X” app would look like, but he claimed buying Twitter “accelerates X by three to five years, but I could be wrong”.
He has previously expressed an interest in creating a “super app” similar to China’s WeChat.
WeChat, which is used by more than 1 billion people in China, combines instant messaging, video calls and mobile payments.
Mr Musk told Twitter staff earlier this year: “Think of it like WeChat in China, which is great now, but there’s no WeChat equivalent outside of China. There’s a real opportunity to create that.”
He added: “You basically live on WeChat in China because it’s so helpful, so useful to daily life. I think if we achieve that or come even close to that with Twitter, that would be a success.”
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It will be much easier to find out the true nature of the spam accounts once he owns the business. I would imagine that making knowingly false declarations that have a material effect on the sale would land the current Twitter executives in very very deep trouble.
It remains to be seen whether having Twitter owned by Musk (and his financial backers) rather than being a publicity traded entity, is a good thing or not.
Toby, Elon Musk is no fan of Free Speech. Mark my words, under him, it will get worse.
That said, I couldn’t give a damn about Twitter. Just boycott it.
Sources?
How long have you got?
Honestly, I can’t be arsed. It’s not a battle I can win. I just write it here for the record, helps me stay sane, I guess…
He thinks China’s WeChat is great. It doesn’t look so great to me: –
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-01-24/new-wechat-app-maps-deadbeat-debtors-in-china/10739016
It looks to me as though Elon Musk has looked to the future and is positioning himself to be able to provide the infrastructure of an American Social Credit score system.
Although he opposed lockdowns, he has been accused of using his Twitter account for market manipulation of cryptocurrency and Tesla shares.
https://www.entrepreneur.com/business-news/elon-musk-sinks-tesla-shares-with-contentious-twitter-poll/395959
I am with you Joe on this one, I don’t trust him at all.
Where is the $44bn coming from..? Unless he’s cashing in his Post Office book, someone is stumping this up from somewhere. If Blackrock or Vanguard are involved then we ought to be very cautious…
Frying pan to fire..?
Once people are controlled via an app on their phones, he’ll be able to improve on the technology by replacing phones with computer interfaces implanted into brains. Much more efficient.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqdo57uky4o
From 9.20
I think it was just a gambit to see whether he could force the acquisition price down. It is part of the usual choreography in US takeovers for the buyer or seller to threaten to walk away in order to try to get a better deal. Sometimes it works, sometimes not.
Main thing. He is buying it. The Twitten-SS will be rushed off to the fainting couches.
To be replaced by something even worse. Mark my words.
Anyone who has made his money selling products built on slave labour of millions (think batteries for his rubbish cars, and solar panels made in china) is not someone I’d trust.
Has anyone else noticed people complaining yesterday that they had a sudden bulk loss of followers (500-1000 in one go). Computer glitch? Matt Letissier, Bob Moran, Peter McCullough.
And what is with these Bots?
I’d only trust Musk if he bought Twitter, made it impossible for it to be replicated and then closed it down.
App X …. used to carry out normal life ….. sounds very like the App for a Social Credit System.
The greatest African-American?
Yes, that’s very confusing, I thought African-American meant black. I would say the greatest at the moment would be Aaron Siri, who looks African-American to me, but maybe isn’t. But anyway a great person for striving to get the V-(un)SAFE data revealed.