Here’s Where Things Are At With Elon Musk’s Twitter Purchase
Authored by Andrew Moran via The Epoch Times (emphasis ours),
Could billionaire CEO Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter finally be in the home stretch?
According to a regulatory filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform has been unanimously approved by the board, recommending stockholders “that you vote for the adoption of the merger agreement.”
Shareholders must still vote on the $44 billion takeover proposal. If Musk’s purchase were finalized today, investors would receive a premium of more than $15 a share at the current share price.
Musk responded to the news, posting a tweet on Tuesday that “the vote of confidence is much appreciated.”
Speaking in an interview with Bloomberg at the Qatar Economic Forum on Tuesday, Musk confirmed that there were a few “unresolved matters” before he could seal the deal. For Musk, there are three issues that need to be resolved: fake accounts, shareholder approval, and debt financing.
“There is the question of, will the debt portion of the round come together, and then, will the shareholders vote in favor,” he said.
“There’s a limit to what I can say publicly,” he noted. “It is somewhat of a sensitive matter.”
Musk added that he does not want to be at the head of Twitter, preferring to focus on “driving the product.” He has never been too keen on corporate titles, changing his designation to TechnoKing at Tesla Motors.
Over the last month, there have been widespread concerns that the purchase would be called off.
In May, Musk threatened to walk away from the deal, writing in a tweet that his planned purchase was “temporarily on hold” as he waited for details on spam bots and fake accounts, although he reiterated that he was “still committed to acquisition.”
Later, Musk explained that his $44 billion offer was based on the company’s SEC filings being accurate. However, without accurate proof showing that fewer than 5 percent of the company’s accounts are spam, Musk averred that the “deal cannot move forward” until that proof is provided.
Following a June 6 letter from his legal team that requested comprehensive data, Twitter announced that the tech firm would extend him unprecedented access to the entire “firehose” of internal data.
During last week’s all-hands Q&A meeting with Twitter staff, Musk provided more details on his plans for the microblogging website.
The SpaceX and Tesla Motors CEO told personnel that anonymity is critical for people to freely express their political opinions, something that is crucial for him. At the same time, he considered a concept that users could pay to be authenticated as human through a mechanism similar to the Twitter Blue subscription services, which could rank those users’ tweets higher than others.
For content moderation, something he has consistently lamented, Musk believes users should be able to post “pretty outrageous things” as long as those statements are legal. He reiterated his position that if 10 percent of the far left and far right are upset equally, then Twitter is doing a good job.
After laying off about 10 percent of Tesla staff, there had been a concern that Musk would mirror this measure at the San Francisco-based tech giant. But this action might depend on Twitter’s financial situation.
“It depends. The company does need to get healthy. Right now, the costs exceed the revenue,” he said. “Anyone who is a significant contributor has nothing to worry about.”
“If someone is getting useful things done, that’s great. If they’re not then I’m like why are they at the company,” Musk added.
Ultimately, Musk’s goal is for Twitter to have more than one billion users. According to the most recent quarterly report, the website has approximately 229 million monetizable daily active users (mDAUs).
