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Twitter Businesses Social Networks

Musk Proposes To Proceed With Twitter Deal at $54.20 a Share - Bloomberg (bloomberg.com) 302

Bloomberg News reports: Elon Musk is proposing to buy Twitter for the original offer price of $54.20 a share, Bloomberg News reports. Musk made the proposal in a letter to Twitter, according to the people who asked not to be identified discussing confidential information.
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Musk Proposes To Proceed With Twitter Deal at $54.20 a Share - Bloomberg

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  • by backslashdot ( 95548 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @11:29AM (#62937381)

    So that hissy fit was all for nothing?

    • He'll change his mind tomorrow.
      • by DrXym ( 126579 )
        After the stock price shoots up and he dumps his shares.
    • Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by blahbooboo ( 839709 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @11:34AM (#62937403)
      Translation, he has no out.
      • Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Interesting)

        by quantaman ( 517394 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @12:14PM (#62937609)

        Translation, he has no out.

        I doubt he would have been forced to pay $54.20 for it... he probably should have... but it probably wouldn't go that far.

        But he would have been forced to pay a substantial penalty for screwing around and hurting the valuation so much. So given the choice of paying $X to get out of the deal vs $54B to get Twitter he chose to buy Twitter.

        I suspect his mental state over realizing his choice had something to do with his ridiculous Twitter poll proposing to give Russia victory in Ukraine [twitter.com].

        Note, if this letter does in fact exists the court case is done. He can't really change his mind again and claim he was defrauded.

        • There was no other option, he would've had to pay $54.20 per share if he lost. Otherwise only if Twitter wanted to settle for something else but there's no way they would.

          And he'd absolutely lose because the shit coming out now from discovery is pretty spicy. He had some shady conversations with a protonmail account where they agreed to "take it to a more secure channel", and he failed to disclose all of this.

        • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          It's probably because his embarrassing private communications are coming out due to the lawsuit.

        • Comment removed based on user account deletion
        • Losing the case in Delaware would have resulted in him being forced to purchase at $54.20, as well as potential damages to Twitter itself for what is arguably market-moving libel.
          The Court in cases like these doesn't go, "oh you know what, $20 is a more fair price. You can have that", because it isn't about what is fair. The Delaware Court of Chancery is about contracts.

          If his lawyers have said, "you're going to lose..." forgoing the rest of the process and just doing it is the right move.
      • > Translation, he has no out.

        The agreement he signed was extremely seller-friendly.

      • No I think more likely he became aware of the line of questioning the depo he was scheduled to sit for. Remember a depo is under oath. Something very damaging was going to come out. Who knows what, but worth 44B to musk.
      • by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

        Translation, he has no out.

        I think he realizes if he went to court, he could be hurt far worse.

        Musk has been screwing over discovery - enough so that the judge is pretty pissed at him for failing to hand over the discovery disclosure information. Enough so that Twitter enlarged its request to Musk's friends and associates to get that information as well.

        Twitter had evidence Musk was still hiding information, and even applied for the ultimate in civil penalties - negative inference.

        Negative inference is a co

    • Re:Wait, what? (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @11:36AM (#62937417)

      He's on another of his week long drug fuelled benders at the moment. Yesterday he proposed Ukraine accept Russia's demands of permanently giving up Crimea and remaining neutral (aka defenceless against further Russian aggression).

      Most of Twitter turned on him for spouting such stupidity at a time where multiple Russian fronts are in collapse (Kharkiv and Kherson) and Zelensky humiliated him with a counter poll where 79% called it out.

      So given he's on one of his drug fuelled benders right now I wouldn't be surprised to find out he's changed his mind and decided to buy it just so he can ban Zelensky or something, because that's how pathetic and petty Musk is.

      • Re: Wait, what? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by backslashdot ( 95548 )

        He seems to be surrounding himself with right-wingers who are slowly corrupting his brain. Seems to have accelerated since COVID. Just a matter of time before he totally ditches even claiming to be a humanist.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Fallen Kell ( 165468 )
      I think it was more to see if two things happened, 1) the share price plummeted showing a lack of confidence in the long term viability of the company without Musk's support, 2) the additional transparency of BOT usage with the possibility of that usage being curtailed and/or eliminated would drastically affect the company value.

      There is a third option, in that Musk's lawyers did not realize the agreements they signed forced them into the situation where the deal was going to be binding and that they would
      • ... see if two things happened, 1) the share price plummeted showing a lack of confidence in the long term viability of the company without Musk's support, ...

        Today, Twitter's share price was:

        $42.91 @ 12:05pm -- around where it's been for a *while*
        $49.62 @ 12:12pm
        $47.93 @ 12:14pm -- +12.67%

        ... but the day's not over.

    • Re:Wait, what? (Score:5, Informative)

      by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @11:40AM (#62937447)

      He was unable to show that the "bot problem" was anywhere near the level he claimed it was - his own people's investigation found numbers higher than Twitter's 5% claim, but much closer to that than to Musk's "at least 20% and probably much more". That, combined with the fact that he'd waived due diligence, pretty much sunk his chance to get out of it.

      Although honestly I'm surprised he's not just going with backing out and paying the 1 billion penalty.

      • He'd have to pay more than the billion. He'd be on the hook for the difference between his price and the current price plus or minus some fees and other damages. Most predictions I saw were in the $10-$15 billion range.

        So for just 300% more, he can run the company as he pleases into the ground.
      • There is no one Billion buyout penalty ! He arranged the finance, Nor does there seem to be government action saying no this deal can not go ahead etc.
      • by edwdig ( 47888 )

        Although honestly I'm surprised he's not just going with backing out and paying the 1 billion penalty.

        The $1 billion escape clause only applies if:

        a) Circumstances outside of Musk or Twitter's control block the deal (3rd party financing issues, regulatory action, etc)

        b) There's substantial fraud that impacts the financials

        Option b is why he tried the fake account excuse. But a) Twitter was always open about how they came up with their numbers and the limitations of them b) Musk's 20% counter is obviously way more wrong than Twitter's numbers

      • Although honestly I'm surprised he's not just going with backing out and paying the 1 billion penalty.

        He always wanted it. He just thought he could get it cheaper. It's worth the price to him. In order to be a proper modern supervillain you have to own a media outlet so that you can alter public opinion.

    • So that hissy fit was all for nothing?

      From the linked article " ... alleging that Twitter had misled him about the size of its user base and the prevalence of automated accounts known as bots." - either the issues have been resolved (i.e. Twitter showed that actually they didn't misled with regard to their comodity database size) or he was forced due to lack a legal precedence - there was lot's of activity behind the closed doors about it.

    • A fool and his money...
    • by Holi ( 250190 )
      pretty much, he locked himself into the deal when he waived due diligence. He had little legal recourse,
    • It's called haggling.
  • by memory_register ( 6248354 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @11:36AM (#62937419)
    Does this mean Twitter has real users? That the bot counts are at least plausible?
    • Re:Wow (Score:4, Funny)

      by im_thatoneguy ( 819432 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @12:01PM (#62937547)

      Musk has always had a bullshit excuse disconnected from reality in his complaint.

      Twitter "Of our billions of registered users we are pretty sure 200 million or so are real people. Give or take 5%"
      Musk "It seems like way more than half of the users are bots!!"
      Twitter "That's entirely possible, we only are saying >95% of the people we think are real are real."
      Musk "It's like most of the tweets are from bots!"
      Twitter "That's entirely possible."
      Musk "You're totally lying about the bot counts! I just found another bot."
      Twitter *sigh* "Again, we aren't making statements about percentage of tweets, or even percentage of total users, just the percentage of the subset of users we claim are human."

    • I'd guess it means Musk had been told by his attorneys that he was almost bound to lose, so preferred to try to make it look like this was his choice rather than just being a loser coerced by the court.

      It's interesting that he's not even attempting to offer any less than the original price he was on the hook for - maybe an indication of how strong Twitter's case was. The language is interesting though - "proposes to buy" vs "agreed to buy". Has anything changed in this new "proposal" ?

      Got to wonder if the l

  • Cue up Dave Chappelle - When keeping it real goes wrong.

  • He got his a$$ handed to him for his Ukrainian piece proposal, so he's trying to make the toy his and control it.
    And/or he finally realized Twitter has power as an influencer platform that's worth the price.
  • by msauve ( 701917 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @12:16PM (#62937619)
    What with the drop in TWTR's share price due to the uncertainty, and the additional drop due to the market downturn, I wonder how many more shares of TWTR he and/or his partners bought up at a discount vs. the offer price? It was under $40 less than a month ago.
    • What with the drop in TWTR's share price due to the uncertainty, and the additional drop due to the market downturn, I wonder how many more shares of TWTR he and/or his partners bought up at a discount vs. the offer price? It was under $40 less than a month ago.

      I actually doubt this would be the case.

      Any "partner" of his is going to be a very rich individual, meaning they'd need to buy a lot of stock to make it worthwhile.

      And anyone close to Musk who bought a lot of Twitter stock while Musk was supposedly trying to exit the deal would be a massive red flag for regulators and the start of an investigation for insider trading (which does send people to jail).

  • Well that sucks (Score:2, Informative)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 )
    He's going to bring back Donald Trump and Donald Trump is going to incite violence. We know this because he's actively inciting violence right now. So are the people carrying water for him.

    If you don't like riots in your cities this is bad news for you. When he inevitably loses the next election because 50% of voters literally want him put in prison making him unelectable you can expect widespread violence. Hopefully nobody sets fire to your car
  • Let's not get excited.
  • Insist on a cashier's check not drawn on a Russian or Saudi or Indian bank.

  • There was a small proviso added to the deal, however: "Before we [buy Twitter], [the board] must cross that field, present himself before this army, put his head between his legs, and kiss his own arse." [source [google.com]]
  • Finally, a stunningly intelligent and clever move that makes me realize that Elon Musk truly IS a genius, and not just an idiot gasbag full of hot air!

    How did he manage to navigate himself back to the original offer price? His fancy footwork and 4D chess skills are truly astounding here, I can't even figure out which parts of this deal are genius and which parts are disguised as being utterly moronic.

    • It's not exactly 4DC stuff here but assuming he doesn't get in some kind of trouble for all his shenanigans it's a bunch of free advertising. He always wanted Twitter, he wanted to see if he could get it cheaper.

      • It's not free advertising, he's paying a law firm a lot of money for this case.

        And he was never getting twitter for less money, that wasn't possible in this deal.

    • His fancy footwork and 4D chess skills are truly astounding here, I can't even figure out which parts of this deal are genius and which parts are disguised as being utterly moronic.

      He has made himself into the tech equivalent of Rupert Murdoch, which isn't entirely stupid. He probably overpaid, and as far as I'm concerned Twitter is cancer, but it is influential. The mainstream media will probably talk about tweets less than they used to given Musk's now openly declared political leanings but they're still going to quote Tweets a helluva lot more often than they quote Truth Social. After all, AOC uses the platform.

      Kinda dumb at that price sure. Utterly moronic? No.

  • He's probably realized he can't get out of it and having his own massive private platform to run how he wants is probably interesting enough for him to just stop futzing around.

    Shareholders are probably a bigger drag on Twitter than public sentiment.

    Truth Social is imploding making it clear you can't just build a platform from scratch no matter how rabid your fans are and there are no serious alternatives for conversation that doesn't just invite degenerate racists and bigots.

  • his investigation into the Bot accounts discovered maybe more than the 5% that Twitter was claiming but less than the 20% that he thought. Couple that with potential fines and dragging it through the courts and he probably came to the conclusion that it wasn't worth it to prolong it.

    He's going to clean house at the executive ranks and probably do the standard 10% staff layoffs. Maybe he has come up with an idea on how to reduce the Bot accounts.

    Short term he is overpaying but if he is able to execute a turn

    • Re:Most likely (Score:4, Insightful)

      by nasch ( 598556 ) on Tuesday October 04, 2022 @04:32PM (#62938665)

      his investigation into the Bot accounts discovered maybe more than the 5% that Twitter was claiming but less than the 20% that he thought.

      He was never even talking about the same number as Twitter. Twitter was reporting percentage of monetizable daily active users, and Musk was talking about total active users but pretending it was the same thing.

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