Twitter shares rise with Elon Musk deal reportedly close

NME

Twitter’s shares have risen by around four per cent as the social media company is reportedly close to agreeing on a takeover deal with Elon Musk.

The entrepreneur bought a 9.2 per cent stake in the platform earlier this month and was due to join the company’s board shortly after. However, he ultimately decided not to do so.

On April 14, Musk made an offer to buy Twitter outright for $43billion (£33.8bn) but was initially turned down by the company, which put a “poison pill” measure in place to stop a takeover attempt by the Tesla CEO. In the weeks since, though, the two parties have entered talks with the deal now in the final stages of negotiations, according to Bloomberg.

Reuters has also announced that the takeover could be finalised as soon as today (April 25) following a meeting of Twitter’s board in which it recommended a deal to its shareholders.

Since the news of the talks was made public, shares have risen to $50.62 (£39.78) each – an increase of nearly four per cent. Musk has offered to buy the company at a price of $54.20 (£42.60) per share.

According to the Independent, before closing the deal Twitter’s board is also seeking to find out if there are any active investigations into Musk by financial regulators that could prevent the deal from going through.

In documents, Musk has revealed that he has readied $46.5billion (£36.6bn) in financing in order to buy Twitter, with funding coming from his own assets, Wall Street bank Morgan Stanley and other companies.

It is currently unclear if Musk himself would run Twitter should the deal be finalised or if he would allow the company’s current management to continue overseeing the platform. However, in documents relating to his buyout offer, Musk said he doesn’t “have confidence in management”.

“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,” he said. “However, since making my investment I now realise the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”

Posting on his own Twitter account last month, the entrepreneur promised: “If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!”

Meanwhile, earlier this month, Musk said he refused to enter the infamous Berlin techno club Berghain because the word “peace” had been written on a wall at the venue. “They wrote PEACE on the wall at Berghain! I refused enter,” he tweeted.

“Peace. Peace? I hate the word. Those who do care about peace (myself aspirationally included) don’t need to hear it. And those who don’t care about peace? Well…”

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