Title: "Best And Final Offer" - Elon Musk Offers To Buy Twitter For $54.20 Per Share Source:
[None] URL Source:https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/b ... -offers-buy-twitter-5420-share Published:Apr 14, 2022 Author:Tyler Durden Post Date:2022-04-14 07:43:44 by Horse Keywords:None Views:1018 Comments:14
"Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it."
I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.
However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.
As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced. My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.
Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.
Actually, thinking on it more, if the board refuses the offer, then the markets will sell off Twitter shares before Musk sells any of his. That will give Musk the opportunity to buy up even more shares of Twitter at that discounted price, well below what he's offering, so maybe he'll then buy another 5-6% in Twitter holdings.
Then with some 15% of twitter stock, he repeats the offer to buy up the company at a lower price, say $45/share. Lather, rinse, repeat. At whatever point he breaks the 50% holding of the company, he has monopoly shareholder control.
So.... the board is facing a situation where they can either lose control of the company by selling it outright at the offer price, trying to negotiate higher which Musk promised wouldn't be considered, or refusing the offer and trying to maintain control while seeing their Twitter stock value plummet which might see them lose control anyway. It's a guess between how the market will react AND believing Musk is bluffing about sinking so much money into Twitter.
Update (1330ET): The much anticipated discussion with Elon Musk at TED is underway and has sparked controversy - Surprise!
Musk started by pointing out he is "not interested in the economics" at all, he wants to create "an inclusive arena for free speech."
He defines what he considers free speech: "Is someone you don't like allowed to say something you don't like? If that is the case then we have free speech."
Twitter should be "very cautious" with permanent bans, he prefers "timeouts for questionable speech, rather than bans"
While Musk said he "could technically afford it," he admitted he's "not sure he'll actually be able to acquire Twitter"
TWTR shares sank back into the red on the comments...
Interestingly, Musk noted otowards the end of the discussion that, if his offer is not accepted, he "has a Plan B" which is noteworthy as at the same time, The Wall Street Journal reports that management is planning a poison pill to limit Musk's stake.
Update (1200ET): Having surged higher on Musk's initial bid, TWTR shares have now plunged back to earth and erased all the day's gains as investors either a) take profits on Musk-driven spikes, or b) dump the stock in anticipation of the board's rejection and the subsequent liquidation of Musk's holdings...
Saudi Prince Alwaleed just rejected the offer, via Twitter:
"I don't believe that the proposed offer by @elonmusk ($54.20) comes close to the intrinsic value of @Twitter given its growth prospects. Being one of the largest & long-term shareholders of Twitter @Kingdom_KHC & I reject this offer."
The Saudi Prince apparently owns 5.2% of TWTR (since 2015)...
...and just like that, the gains were gone...
We wonder exactly what the "intrinsic value" of TWTR is - according to Alwaleed above?
Of course, there is one winner if Musk's bid fails... "democracy."
As Glenn Greenwald so eloquently noted on Twitter:
"If the success of your political movement, your national ambitions, or your wars, depends upon the need to censor dissent and silence your adversaries, that's a pretty strong indication that you have zero confidence in the beliefs you want to propagate, probably for good reason."
Because, he adds with perfect irony:
"Everyone knows that the evils that grew out of Weimar Germany happened when book burnings stopped and were replaced instead by a commitment to free speech and the free expression of ideas.
One more time: censorship was a weapon used by Nazis and all fascists, not free speech."
Twitter Holds EMERGENCY Meeting Over Elon Musk Hostile Takeover, Woke Corporations Use DIRTY TRICKS
A cursory glance at TWTR's chart looks like it was a shit investment, you would've lost a third of your money in the last ten years. They don't pay dividends, but I suppose you could've played the bullshit 'day trading' game and eeked out a few bucks along with the nightmarish reporting requirements.
Now some sub 80 IQ towelhead really put the screwin' to you. No doubt Bidet's SEC will go after Musk with some 'Trumped-up' charges, but the damage is done. You don't get rich on capital losses.