By Adedapo Adesanya
Twitter is set to cave in and sell the social network platform to the world’s richest man, Mr Elon Musk, for around $43 billion in cash, Reuters is reporting.
Citing people familiar with the matter, it was reported that the price the chief executive of Tesla Inc has called was his “best and final” offer for the social media company.
The news service said that Twitter may announce the $54.20 per-share deal later on Monday once its board has met to recommend the transaction to Twitter shareholders.
It is always possible that the deal collapses at the last minute, the sources added.
Business Post had reported that the world’s richest person was negotiating to buy Twitter in a personal capacity.
Twitter has not been able to secure so far a ‘go-shop’ provision under its agreement with Mr Musk that would allow it to solicit other bids once the deal is signed.
Still, Twitter would be allowed to accept an offer from another party by paying Mr Musk a break-up fee, according to the report.
Mr Musk has said Twitter needs to be taken private to grow and become a genuine platform for free speech.
The deal would come just four days after the billionaire unveiled a financing package to back the acquisition. This led Twitter’s board to take the deal more seriously and many shareholders to ask the company not to let the opportunity for a deal to slip away.
The sale would represent an admission by Twitter that its new chief executive, Mr Parag Agrawal, who took the helm in November 2021, is not making enough traction in making the company more profitable, despite being on track to meet ambitious financial goals the company set for 2023.
Also, Twitter had tried to fend off Mr Musk’s advances with a poison pill defence, which would let existing shareholders buy more stock at lower prices, effectively diluting the company’s shares and pushing the price of his bid up.
After an initial acquisition of a 9.2 per cent stake in Twitter, Mr Musk had been granted access to the shareholders’ table but that was later rescinded and later, the billionaire said he was willing to pay $54.20 per share to buy 100 per cent of the company.
But now with a sale possible, Mr Musk intends to borrow around $13 billion in various fashions; borrow $12.5 billion against his own equity holdings, and pay around $21 billion from his own holdings.
