Twitter shareholders accept Elon Musk’s offer

Ahead of the trial that will have to decide on the legitimacy of Elon Musk’s abandonment of his takeover bid for Twitter, the social network’s shareholders have accepted his old offer.

ICYMI: Musk’s $44 billion buyout of Twitter accepted by shareholders ahead of trialhttps://t.co/8nt9z9XDJb

— The Block (@TheBlock__) September 14, 2022

With at least somewhat suspicious timing, just days before the first hearing in the trial involving Twitter and Elon Musk, the social network’s shareholders on 13 September accepted his $44 billion takeover offer, later withdrawn by Elon Musk himself.

In July, Twitter decided to take the Tesla founder to court over his decision to withdraw his buyout offer, which was considered illegitimate by the social network’s top management. Elon Musk had withdrawn his bid for more than $44 billion (judged by many analysts to be perhaps a bit excessive) to purchase Twitter because, in his view, the company had been unable to provide the required data regarding the number of fake accounts on the platform.

A few weeks ago, the Delaware judge who will have to handle the case had denied a motion by Musk’s lawyers to postpone the first hearing of the trial until 2023. The judge decided that the first hearing will be held on 17 October. Hence, the fact that the shareholders are making such a decision on the very eve of the start of the trial seems at least outlandish, considering that this offer would now be invalid.

The request for approval of the offer had been sent to shareholders in June and the response came almost three months later, giving rise to speculation and also considering that it comes just days before the deposition in Congress of the social network’s former security chief.

The never-ending story between Elon Musk and the takeover bid for Twitter

Peiter Zatko is reportedly being heard by US congressmen over his harsh and serious allegations made in August about Twitter’s security flaws, which could even put national security at risk, the former Twitter manager told CNN. The peculiar thing is that Zatko in his interview seemed to corroborate Musk’s accusations, saying that indeed the social network would have absolutely no knowledge and control over the fake profiles present or bots, which could also be paid for in foreign countries, as suspected could have happened in the last two US presidential elections.

Twitter has dismissed these allegations as the outburst of an executive who was kicked out for his inability and his immediately contentious relationship with Twitter management. But Musk’s lawyers were quick to say that they will call Mr. Zatko to testify in the upcoming trial to be held in October.

Twitter, for its part, has reportedly already called as witnesses on its behalf the exchange Binance and dozens of other crypto companies that are involved in some way in the takeover bid submitted by Musk last April. In a July tweet, Twitter’s lawyer, Bret Taylor, broke this news by saying that he is confident that his company will win the case against Musk.

The Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Mr. Musk and plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement. We are confident we will prevail in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

— Bret Taylor (@btaylor) July 8, 2022

Musk in September reportedly sold Tesla shares for about $7 billion, and someone immediately commented on the news, explaining that it was a move to protect himself just ahead of the upcoming trial. Musk’s relationship with the social network has always been quite turbulent, considering that Musk, a big user of Twitter, has never failed to make harsh criticisms of the social network’s management.

Musk, who is one of the profiles with the most followers ever (more than 105 million) and thanks precisely to his tweets, has on certain occasions caught the attention of investors on certain meme coins, such as Doge or Shiba Inu, which precisely thanks to him have incredibly succeeded in climbing the market capitalization rankings reaching the top ten. 

For this reason, Musk would have liked to buy the social to make it a safer and more open place (he had also harshly criticized Twitter’s decisions to exclude permanently former president Donald Trump from the social), but evidently the problems that Twitter is encountering, not only related to security but also to its accounts and its future, convinced Musk that for now it was not the case to make such a risky operation.