It’s been a wild month of stories for the social network that we collectively love to hate. In early April, Elon Musk took a chunk out of Twitter, coming away with 9.2% of the corporate and plans to train his affect over the corporate by means of its board. After that he backed out of his deliberate board seat, Musk teed up an much more outrageous plan: He’d purchase the corporate outright and take it personal. Completely everybody freaked out about this and had an opinion and a few of these opinions forged doubt on the seriousness of the famously unserious tech mogul’s grand plans.
Musk’s $43 billion supply valued Twitter for lower than it was buying and selling for a 12 months in the past, begging the query: Is that this man for actual? We nonetheless don’t actually know — Musk is mercurial and notoriously liable to massive dumb stunts — however apparently he’s cobbling collectively the money with some assist from Morgan Stanley and Financial institution of America.
Musk is the world’s richest man, however he’s additionally comparatively money poor for a mega-billionaire, so making his play on Twitter would require him to money out shares held at Tesla and SpaceX, the 2 corporations he’s ostensibly operating whereas whipping us all right into a frenzy over his completely pointless ambitions to purchase Twitter and reshape it in his picture. In the meantime Twitter is working to fend of Musk’s advances with a poison capsule protection, which might let present shareholders purchase extra inventory at low, low costs, successfully diluting the corporate’s shares and pushing the value of his bid up.
As a result of it’s Musk we’re speaking about, it’s anybody’s guess what occurs subsequent, however right here’s what’s occurred to this point. We’ll present updates because the story continues to unfold.
A timeline of the Elon Musk-Twitter saga
1. US regulators mentioned somebody ought to actually monitor Elon Musk’s tweets
Earlier than Musk even positioned a bid for Twitter, SEC regulators mentioned they’ve authority to subpoena the Tesla CEO about his tweets and even urged a federal decide to not let the manager get away with tweeting with abandon.
2. Elon Musk tweets that he’s “giving critical thought” to constructing his personal social media platform
Shortly after U.S. regulators urged a decide to observe Musk’s tweets, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO expressed he was giving critical thought to construct the ‘subsequent Twitter.’
3. Elon Musk buys 9.2% share of Twitter on April 4th
Twitter published a note confirming that the SpaceX and Tesla entrepreneur has taken a 9.2% share of the corporate, understanding to round $2.9 billion primarily based on Friday’s (March 4th) share value.
4. Elon Musk snags a board seat at Twitter the following day, April fifth
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal introduced that Elon Musk was appointed to Twitter’s board in a sequence of tweets:
5. In main reversal, Elon Musk will now not be becoming a member of Twitter’s board, introduced April 10
Later that very same week, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal introduced he wouldn’t be becoming a member of the social media agency’s board. The disclosure from Agrawal follows a sequence of bizarre tweets from Elon Musk over the identical weekend wherein he questioned aloud to his over 80 million followers if Twitter was dying, citing low frequency of tweets from a few of the hottest personalities on the social community.
6. A Twitter shareholder sues after Musk fails to promptly disclose his enormous funding in Twitter
A Twitter shareholder sued Musk in a federal securities class motion lawsuit as a result of Musk did not disclose his 5% stake in Twitter when he was required to take action. The delay allowed Musk to purchase extra shares of Twitter at a lower cost and cheat sellers of Twitter inventory out of elevated income, the plaintiff claims.
7. Elon Musk presents to purchase Twitter, the entire firm, for $43 billion on April 14
The billionaire mentioned he’s prepared to pay $54.20 per share to purchase 100% of the corporate. It could be an all-cash supply that values the social community at $43.4 billion. He filed the supply with SEC and tweeted it out hours earlier than he was interviewed on Ted.
8. Elon Musk does an interview at Ted hours after sending Twitter his massive supply
The controversial CEO of Tesla and SpaceX was already making ready to talk on the TED2022 convention for a dialog that was in such excessive demand that TED made the livestream out there to the general public.
9. The next day, April fifteenth, Twitter’s board turns towards the protection everybody anticipated: the poison capsule
Twitter’s board of administrators introduced in a press release that the corporate is adopting a restricted period shareholder rights plan — a “poison capsule” in merger and acquisition lingo. Whereas the corporate doesn’t title Elon Musk straight, Twitter is clearly making an attempt to stop the billionaire from shopping for the social community.
10. Elon Musk breaks down how he’d fund his $43 billion bid for Twitter
To summarize: Musk intends to borrow round $13 billion in numerous fashions; borrow $12.5 billion in opposition to his personal fairness holdings; and pay round $21 billion from his personal holdings. It’s a considerably sophisticated assortment of funding sources, however Musk’s bid is hardly small, so the trail to accumulating the wanted money in a single pile is understandably convoluted.
