Shareholders Will Love It – Tech Giant Promises

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After offering a “stoner” price of $54.20 per Twitter share, Elon Musk noted to the board, “it’s a high price and your shareholders will love it.” Musk later told reporters that he has a “Plan B‘ if his initial $41 billion offer fails.” The SpaceX entrepreneur wants to buy the social media platform and take it private. The tech giant clearly has the resources to make a hostile takeover happen but he isn’t doing it for the money. Musk is out to save the “future of civilization.

Shareholders going frantic

Elon Musk has Twitter shareholders scrambling to respond after the controversial billionaire quietly picked up a controlling interest in the social media behemoth. The latest word is that he “is pursuing a hostile takeover.

This, he assured TED2022 Conference in Vancouver, on Thursday afternoon, “is not about the economics.” His “strong intuitive sense is having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is important to the future of civilization.

Twitter, Musk observes, “has become kind of the de facto town square, so it’s really important that people have both the reality and perception that they are able to speak freely, in the bounds of the law.

What we see now is partisan censorship. “The civilizational risk is decreased the more we can increase the trust of Twitter as a public platform.” He knows the shareholders will like his offer, even if they don’t like his politics.

When asked if he has a “plan B” if the board “rejects his bid,” Musk confirmed he does, but isn’t giving details. He’ll get to that when the time comes, if it does. When asked about the price tag, he notes, “I have sufficient assets…I can do it.

For now, it’s up to the shareholders. “Twitter’s board of directors was meeting on Thursday afternoon to discuss Musk’s historic takeover bid, and the company planned to hold an all-hands meeting later in the day to update employees.

Share price roller coaster

News of the move sent Twitter stock into radical up and down swings between positive and negative in volatile afternoon trading. Shareholders can clearly see that even at the high mark, the price was well below the figure Musk offered.

That tends to suggest to insiders that “markets are skeptical that the deal will go through.” One Saudi prince has already come out against the takeover offer. He owns a big chunk and the pundits say what this really signals is that he’s looking for more money.

Right now, Musk has his hands on 9.2 percent of the stock. That makes him the biggest of all the shareholders and puts him firmly in the driver’s seat.

Musk is already on record from a follow up call with Twitter board chair Bret Taylor that he’s “not playing the back-and-forth game. If the deal doesn’t work, given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.

It seems that Morgan Stanley is “acting as financial adviser for his offer.” Shareholders are especially upset because “his offer letter hints strongly at a management shakeup.” Because of that, the “bid is likely to be fiercely opposed by current Twitter execs, including CEO Parag Agrawal, who also holds a board seat.

Options to fight the hostile takeover could involve either a “White Knight” to make a competing offer or buy out Musk’s position or a “poison pill” which “would trigger punishing dilutions of company shares if Musk attempted to increase his stake in the open market.” Right now, according to billionaire Mark Cuban, “Every major tech company , Google, FB, et al is on the phone with their anti-trust lawyers asking if they can buy Twitter and get it approved.

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