Tag: Twitter acquisition

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Musk vs. Twitter trial pushed to October 28th to give the billionaire time to close acquisition deal

After months of back and forth between Elon Musk and Twitter, it seems like Tesla’s CEO will go through with acquiring Twitter for his initial $44 billion buyout offer.

According to a CP24 report, after reviving his buyout offer on Monday, October 3rd, Musk said he needs some time to get the funding required in order. Hence, the Twitter vs. Musk trial that was initially set to take place on October 17th  has now been postponed to sometime in November, while Musk has until October 28th to close the deal, said Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, head of the Delaware Chancery Court.

It is reported that Musk will acquire a majority of the funds by selling his Tesla shares, while the rest will be acquired by large investors and major banks. Back in April, when news about the Twitter acquisition first came out, it was reported that two Canadian banks were lending Musk money for the deal, namely RBC and CIBC. The two banks had put up $955 million CAD and $500 million CAD, respectively, totalling $1.46 billion CAD. The new round of funding, however, as shared by Reuters, does not have the two banks listed.

A brief timeline of Musk vs. Twitter can be found here.

Image credit: Shutterstock

Source: CP24 

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Elon Musk tries to back out of Twitter deal yet again, cites whistleblower’s severance

Another day, another Elon Musk Twitter story.

The latest developments saw Musk’s legal team send a letter to Twitter in another attempt to terminate the billionaire’s plans to acquire the social media platform.

According to The Verge, Musk’s legal team sent the letter to Twitter’s chief legal officer and filed it with the SEC on September 9th. The document again brings up whistleblower Peiter Zatko, a former company exec. Late last month, Zatko alleged the company lied about bots and security issues. The document states Twitter’s multimillion-dollar severance payment to Zatko breaches the acquisition agreement.

In response, Twitter says it didn’t violate any obligations set out in the agreement. “The purported termination set forth in your September 9th, 2022 letter is invalid and wrongful under the agreement,” the response, filed with SEC on Monday, states.

“Twitter has breached none of its representations or obligations under the agreement, and following the receipt of the approval of Twitter’s stockholders at its September 13th 2022 special meeting, all of the conditions precedent to the closing of the merger will be satisfied.”

According to the Wall Street Journal, Zatko will recieve roughly $7 million, a figure related to lost compensation agreed upon before he left his post.

Source: SEC and the Wall Street Journal Via: The Verge

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Twitter aims to take Elon Musk to court amid acquisition fallout

After Elon Musk attempted to terminate the $44 billion-valued Twitter acquisition deal on Friday, July 8th, the San Francisco, California-based social media company seems to have lawyered up.

As reported by The Verge, Twitter has hired the law firm Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, with one of its founders, Martin Lipton, credited as the inventor of the shareholder rights plan or the “Poison Pill,” a tactic that Twitter deployed earlier this year to block Musk’s initial buyout offer.

Following Musk’s remarks on Friday, Twitter chairman Bret Taylor released a statement on Twitter saying that the company “plans to pursue legal action to enforce the merger agreement,” in the Delaware Court of Chancery.

Following Taylor’s comment, Musk being the meme lord he is, posted a meme about the current debacle, implying that the reason he withdrew his offer was that Twitter wouldn’t disclose how many users on its platform are bots and that the platform would now have to do so in court.

“For nearly two months, Mr. Musk has sought the data and information necessary to make an independent assessment of the prevalence of fake or spam accounts on Twitter’s platform,” reads Musk’s legal team’s letter to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).

Musk’s legal team, the Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan law firm, has defended the billionaire in the past, specifically in his “pedo guy” defamation lawsuit, and has also defended Samsung in its Apple patent lawsuit, according to The Verge.

Via: The Verge

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Elon Musk might temporarily serve as Twitter CEO post acquisition

Twitter’s new CEO Parag Agrawal might be in danger of losing his job, at least temporarily.

According to a CNBC News report, after Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s Twitter acquisition officially goes through, he’ll become the social media platform’s temporary CEO. The information comes from an unnamed source that is familiar with the matter, said CNBC News.

For those who don’t know, Agrawal was named CEO of Twitter in November of last year, when former CEO Jack Dorsey announced his resignation. Just over six months in, he is already in danger of losing his position. The report also suggests that Musk is in talks with Dorsey about him making a comeback.

On the other hand, a Reuters report from last week suggests that Musk has a new CEO lined up to take over Twitter.

While there’s a lot of uncertainty about the takeover, and no statements from Agrawal yet, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who also is a major investor in Twitter, believes that Musk will be an “excellent leader” for the social media platform. Considering Musk’s experience running other companies, there’s a possibility the prince might be right.

On the contrary, Musk’s yet-to-complete takeover has already frustrated some, so much so that people are leaving the social media platform. Since the news about Musk’s acquisition came out, popular left-wing figures have experienced a relentless drop in followers, including former President Barack Obama, the most followed user on Twitter, who has lost more than 300,000 followers in the recent week. If Musk was to take on the role of CEO, I would imagine that more people would leave the platform.

In other Twitter and Musk-related news, the world’s richest man reportedly plans to cut jobs and costs once the acquisition of Twitter is complete.