Emma Okonji with agency report
The controversial deal to buy over Twitter for $44 billion by billionaire businessman, Elon Musk, may come to an end today as Elon Musk would know his fate after stakeholders vote that would either allow or disallow the move.
Twitter Inc. announced that it had scheduled its special meeting where shareholders would vote on whether to approve Tesla Inc. TSLA Chief Executive Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover of the company. The meeting would take place today.
Meanwhile, Twitter’s shares dropped by one per cent yesterday on the New York Stock exchange, ahead of today’s scheduled vote.
Twitter had urged shareholders to approve the deal for a takeover at $54.20 per share, after shares closed at $39.34 in July this year.
Analyst recently opined that Twitter shares could trade in the mid-teens without the support of the deal, given recent pressure on the advertising market illustrated in part by Twitter’s recent downbeat earnings report.
Musk however had terminated the deal, citing concerns over the accuracy of Twitter’s public disclosures around bot accounts. A Delaware judge sided with Twitter earlier in July, and had agreed to an expedited trial on the matter expected to take place next month
But Twitter said Elon Musk’s current move to cancel his agreement to buy the social network was invalid after the billionaire said the company’s treatment of a whistle-blower gave him another reason to walk away from the $44 billion deal.
“Musk’s latest move to terminate the deal is ‘invalid and wrongful’ and Twitter has breached none of its representations or obligations,” the company’s lawyers said in a letter yesterday, according to a regulatory filing.
It’s Musk’s third attempt to withdraw his offer because of what he says are violations of the buyout agreement. Musk previously raised concerns about the number of ‘bot’ accounts on the platform, and now has said that Twitter should have notified him before it spent $7.75 million in a separation agreement with Peiter Zatko, the company’s former security chief.
A whistle blower, Zatko, is due to testify this week about his whistle-blower report, in which he raised concerns about lax security, privacy issues and the number of bots on the platform. He has been subpoenaed to testify in the Twitter lawsuit as well.
