Topline
A strained deal to sell Twitter to billionaire Elon Musk has preliminarily passed a key shareholder vote, Reuters and the Wall Street Journal reported Monday, even as Musk tries to back out of the agreement and Twitter asks a court to force him to follow through.
A sign is posted on the exterior of Twitter headquarters in San Francisco.
Key Facts
Most of Twitter’s shareholders had voted to approve the $44 billion deal by Monday afternoon, Reuters reported, citing unnamed sources.
The deal—which Twitter’s board of directors encouraged shareholders to support—is on track to pass its required shareholder vote decisively, according to the Journal, though the paper noted shareholders can still change their minds before a Tuesday deadline.
A Twitter spokesperson did not comment to Forbes, saying the social media company will not share any information ahead of its Tuesday shareholder meeting.
Key Background
Musk’s surprise deal to acquire Twitter for $54.20 per share became mired in chaos shortly after it was first struck in late April. The billionaire Tesla CEO said in July he was “terminating” the agreement, arguing the company had lowballed the percentage of Twitter users that were spam or bot accounts and failed to back up its claims to his team. Twitter quickly sued Musk, denying his claims about spam accounts and suggesting he actually changed his mind about the deal because of a decline in his personal wealth. The company is asking a Delaware state court judge to order Musk to close the deal on the original agreed-upon terms, essentially forcing him to buy the social network. Meanwhile, Musk claimed last week a multimillion-dollar severance payout to Twitter’s ex-head of cybersecurity—who later made damning whistleblower allegations about security vulnerabilities—violated the acquisition deal because Twitter didn’t seek his permission to make the payment, though Twitter said once again Monday the billionaire’s grounds for canceling the deal were invalid.
What To Watch For
A five-day trial in the Twitter-Musk suit is scheduled for mid-October. A judge in Delaware has repeatedly rejected Musk’s attempts to delay the trial, but ruled last week Musk can include claims from Twitter’s cybersecurity whistleblower in a countersuit.
Forbes Valuation
We estimate Musk to be worth $273.9 billion, making him the richest person on the planet. His net worth has oscillated over the last year due to shifts in Tesla’s share price, bouncing from over $300 billion briefly last November to just over $200 billion in May.
Source: https://www.forbes.com/sites/joewalsh/2022/09/12/twitter-shareholders-poised-to-approve-deal-with-elon-musk-even-as-he-keeps-trying-to-terminate-it/