Here’s a quick peek at the status of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover – just how close are we to Elon becoming Twitter-in-Chief? After nearly two months of hectic back and forths involving multiple stakeholders and representatives, the drama that is Elon Musk’s bid for Twitter ownership might finally reach its end.

On These Conditions

Earlier today, Musk addressed the topic in an interview from the Qatar Economic Forum, wherein he explained that there are three main issues that need to be addressed for him to push through with his takeover bid.

These three elements are:

  • Fake Profiles – Musk has emphasized, time and again, that the deal cannot progress unless Twitter can provide solid evidence to support its claim that fake accounts only make up 5% of its total user base. Since then, Twitter has provided Musk and his team with a ‘Full Firehose of Tweets’ so that they could conduct their own assessment and gauge the validity of Twitter’s measures for themselves.

  • Debt Financing – Despite being among the wealthiest in the world, Musk still needs to secure financing to fund his $44 billion offer. Musk committed to paying $33.5 billion in cash, with an additional $7 billion in equity financing commitments from investors. That leaves $3.4 billion which will likely come from bank loans, though the full details of how this’ll work have yet to be finalized.

  • Shareholder Approval – Lastly, Twitter shareholders have to accept Musk’s proposal, which the Twitter board has recommended that they do. This is likely a formality but is also another step that must be taken for the deal to be confirmed. With some shareholders suing Musk already, there’s a chance that the offer could get blocked at this stage.

Musk says that the deal cannot proceed unless these elements are clarified, but Twitter is pushing ahead with particulars, either way, already filing a new proxy statement with the SEC that once again states that it’s ‘committed to completing the transaction at the agreed price’.

Twitter Board Chair Bret Taylor recently echoed the same, suggesting Twitter will look to press Elon to consummate the deal as soon as possible, as opposed to letting him walk on a technicality or re-negotiate for a lower price. Market experts suggest that the latter is what Musk is really aiming for, looking to lower his $44 billion initial offer under the guise of misrepresented information.

The Wrap

This chaotic purchase has gone on long enough. Either way, this is the situation everybody who’s involved is in and no one can tell what comes next until Musk’s team comes back with their own assessment of Twitter’s data. Musk and co. also have other issues to juggle, including Tesla staff cuts, legal action from staff, labor disputes, and more. All-in-all, still a pretty ugly mess, but at least it’s moving – even if slower than a snail’s pace.

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Sources 

https://bit.ly/39LF65M