Twitter Board Unanimously Approves Elon Musk’s $44B Takeover Bid

“Twitter’s Board of Directors, after considering the factors more fully described in the enclosed proxy statement, unanimously: determined that the merger agreement is advisable and the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement are fair to, advisable and in the best interests of Twitter and its stockholders; and adopted and approved the merger agreement, the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement.”

Before closing the deal, the deadline for which is set for October 24, the board will hold a special meeting where shareholders will be advised to vote for the acquisition. Notably, the board will not accept any alternatives to the merger such as staying independent or choosing a different acquirer.

If the merger goes through, Twitter shareholders will receive $54.20 in cash per share that they own. Currently, the Twitter stock is trading at $38.91, which means that the deal would mark a premium of roughly 39%.

Musk’s Plans on Twitter

Elon Musk’s intention for a takeover of Twitter was first revealed on April 25. To finance this $44-billion bid, Musk has secured $25 billion of fully committed debt. Furthermore, the billionaire took $12.5 billion by pledging his Tesla stock. Later, we reported that Musk increased his commitment to the deal to $33.5 billion.

According to Musk, his plans for the social media company are mostly about transforming the platform.

Firstly, Musk is going to take the company private in order to preserve and promote free speech. As Musk explained, having total control of Twitter’s affairs and operations is important to creating a level playing field for right- and left-wing users. Further, within three years, Musk is planning to return Twitter back to public ownership.

Secondly, the billionaire intends for Twitter to enable payments in both fiat and crypto. Most probably, the first coin to be accepted will be Dogecoin (DOGE).

Last week, Musk stated:

“Money is fundamentally digital at this point. It would make sense to integrate payments into Twitter so that it’s easy to send money back and forth.”

Earlier, Twitter gave Musk access to a “firehose” of data including every tweet posted on the platform, in order to enable him to independently verify levels of bot activity.