Key Takeaways:
- Musk stated he would simply dismiss all board members, reducing collective salaries to “$0 if my bid succeeds, therefore that’s $3M/year saved right there.”
- Musk’s sudden $43 billion takeover proposal, which came just a week after he filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission claiming to be a passive investor in the microblogging website, was followed by Twitter’s decision to use a “poison pill” defence.
- Existing shareholders will be able to buy more Twitter stock at a discount if a single investor, or a group of investors, gains control of 15% of the firm without board consent.
- Musk kicked off the bidding war with his original offer to shareholders: $43 billion, or $54.20 per share.
Elon Musk, the billionaire, declared Monday that if his continuing bid to buy Twitter wins, the board of directors’ salary will be chopped to zero.
Musk’s relationship with Twitter, which he described as a “war zone” throughout a 60 Minutes interview in 2018, is problematic because he is both a frequent user of the platform and a loud critic.
Last week, Musk offered $54.20 to buy Twitter and take it private, but Twitter’s board of directors is fighting the deal. Board registered members earn between $200,000 and $300,000 per year, equal to over $3 million in annual costs for the corporation.
Musk tweeted, “Board salary will be $0 if my bid succeeds, so that’s $3M/year saved right there.”
Congressman Darrell Issa says he is with Elon!
Regardless of how serious the situation appears to be, the twitter community never fails to make a joke out of it. Take a look at what @talent drop has to say: “Twitter would be so awesome lol!” says @talent drop.
Musk’s sudden $43 billion takeover proposal, which came just a week after he filed documents with the Securities and Exchange Commission pretending to be a savvy investor in the microblogging website, was followed by Twitter’s decision to use a “poison pill” defence. Existing shareholders will be able to buy greater Twitter stock at a discount if a single investor, or a group of investors, gains control of 15% of the firm without board consent.
Other potential purchasers include Thoma Bravo, a buyout firm, and Silver Lake, a private equity firm that assisted Twitter with a convertible bond financing deal in 2020.
The social media firm, according to Musk, has to go private since it can “neither prosper nor serve” free expression in its current position.
“As a result, I’m offering to buy 100% of Twitter in cash for $54.20 per share, a 54 percent premium over the day before I started investing in Twitter and a 38 percent premium over the day before my investment was publicly publicised,” he said. “If my offer is not accepted, I will have to reevaluate my position as a shareholder.”
In the run-up to his takeover bid, Musk chastised Twitter for its lack of dedication to free expression. In early April, he purchased a 9.2 percent share in the company.
“Because Twitter is the de facto public town square, failure to adhere to free speech norms fundamentally damages democracy,” Musk tweeted on March 26. “How should we proceed?”
He later tweeted, “Is a new platform required?”
Many of Musk’s roughly 80 million Twitter followers urged him to acquire Twitter outright or develop his own platform at the time.
Christina Pushaw, the press secretary for Republican Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, tweeted, “Buy this one!”
What’s up with both sides making detailed pot jokes?
On The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, billionaire Elon Musk is being shown smoking marijuana. YouTube/Joe Rogan Experience Last week, Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter completely, but the company’s board of directors declined. Musk’s offer included a cannabis reference: Twitter stockholders would receive $54.20 per share.
This does not seem to be a statistical coincidence; many feel it’s a deliberate dig by Musk meant to allude to the decades-old cannabis culture catchphrase “420.”
The 20th of April is an undercover holiday for cannabis users. For marijuana smokers, April 20th, or 4/20, is an important day.
For smokers, 4:20 p.m. is regarded as the best time to fire up, and places where one can smoke marijuana are sometimes designated “420 friendly.”
The term “act of smoking marijuana” was even introduced to the Oxford English Dictionary to describe it. The phrase “420” has become a type of juvenile meme on the internet, and making crazy 420 remarks has become somewhat of a silly meme.
