A new plan has just been adopted by the majority of the members of the board of directors of Twitter to try to prevent Elon Musk from buying the social network. A text adopted a day after the billionaire offered to buy the company for 43 billion dollars (40 billion euros).
Twitter tries to prevent Elon Musk from becoming a majority
According to this new text, “If any person or group acquires 15% or more of Twitter’s outstanding common stock without board approval, other shareholders will be permitted to purchase additional shares at a discounted price”. This plan is due to expire on April 14, 2023. It is very clearly a means that should make it possible to delay a possible takeover of the founder of Tesla and spaceX.
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On April 14, Elon Musk again asked his 82 million subscribers to find out if “The privatization of Twitter had to be decided by the shareholders, or not by the board of directors”. The vast majority believe that this decision should be made by the shareholders. The billionaire is trying to bring down the social network, which he considers as too far removed from the values of freedom of expression who are dear to him.
The company said in a press release that “This plan will reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group will gain control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or leaving the board to directors enough time to make informed judgments and take action in the best interest of shareholders”.
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Elon Musk already owns a 9.2% stake in Twitter. Shortly after his participation was made public, Parag Agrawal, CEO of Twitter, offered the billionaire to join the board of directors. The billionaire refused and Parag Agrawal made it known that it was the decision of Elon Musk himself commenting, “I think it’s better that way. We have always appreciated and will always appreciate the contribution of our shareholders, whether or not they are part of our board of directors.”.
Difficult to understand the position of Elon Musk. In an interview broadcast live at the TED2022 conference in Vancouver on Thursday (April 14), Musk laid out his vision for rethinking Twitter algorithms and review the content moderation policy. Strangely, he also admitted that he was not “not sure if I can buy Twitter”even if he stated that he had “sufficient assets to finance the transaction if accepted”. Despite his fortune, Elon Musk has a large part of his assets tied up in the equity of its businesses, including Tesla. Not so easy to release tens of billions of dollars.