San Francisco (AP) – Twitter has given up its resistance to a takeover by tech billionaire Elon Musk. The online service announced on Monday that it had reached a deal with Musk.
Twitter will then be taken off the stock market. The price remains at the $54.20 per share Musk offered from the start. Now it's up to Twitter shareholders to decide whether to accept the offer.
Investors still have slight doubts
The Twitter announcement gave no indication that Musk had already secured enough shareholder approval. According to previous information, he holds a good nine percent and should come to over 50 percent. Twitter has several major shareholders from the financial industry. According to media reports, the bank Morgan Stanley holds a good eight percent and the investment company Vanguard Group around ten percent. Twitter shares were trading at the $52 mark in New York on Monday, so investors still have slight doubts.
Musk explains his interest in Twitter with alleged restrictions on free speech on the short message service, which he wants to turn off.
Secretly bought 9 percent of Twitter
His takeover attack lasted only a few weeks. The billionaire announced in early April that he was quietly buying a stake in Twitter. Then events unfolded. Musk should first move into the Twitter board of directors. However, this would have been subject to the condition that the head of the electric car manufacturer Tesla did not increase his stake in Twitter by more than 15 percent. Instead, he turned down the seat on the board and announced that he wanted to buy Twitter.
The board of directors then introduced a countermeasure that allows other shareholders to buy shares at lower prices as soon as an attacker like Musk has a stake of more than 15 percent. At the same time, Twitter generally reserved the right to agree to a deal. Musk explains his interest with alleged restrictions on freedom of speech on the short message service, which he wants to turn off.
By far the richest person in the world
Musk is one of the most active celebrity Twitter users and has around 83 million followers. He announced that he wants to make Twitter a "global platform for free speech" because this is important for civilisation. Musk's promises of looser regulation drew criticism from experts.
Applause from Trump supporters
His criticism of the state of free speech on Twitter resonates with supporters of ex-President Donald Trump and other US conservatives. Among other things, they have long railed against the fact that Twitter and other online platforms are taking action against false information about the corona virus and Trump's uncovered allegations of election fraud.
Trump was banned from Twitter after expressing sympathy for his supporters who stormed the US Capitol in Washington on January 6, 2021. The management has so far emphasized that there is no way back to the platform for the ex-president. Musk's approaches could now make Trump sit up and take notice with a view to running again in the 2024 presidential election: he finds temporary "timeouts" better than permanent exclusions, said the Tesla boss in general. In the early days, Musk himself downplayed the dangers of the corona virus and criticized restrictions in California as "fascist".
