Twitter May Be Nearing Sale To Elon Musk

Twitter and Elon Musk are said to be close to clinching a sale of the social media giant to Elon Musk after the Tesla CEO came through with finanancing late last week.

According to media reports, Intense meetings over the weekend could lead to a deal being announced as early as this week — even today. The Twitter board had initially backed away from the surprise bid amid doubt around Musk’s financing and likely concerns about about his stewardship of the platform, which he wants to be much freer of content moderation and allowed to function as an entirely open, “public square.”

Musk made his $54.20-a-share cash offer to Twitter on April 13 after amassing a stake of 9.1% of the company and first toying with then scrapping the idea of joining its board. In response, Twitter said it was considering the offer but quickly adopted a poison pill, or shareholders rights plan, that would make a hostile takeover more difficult.

Musk then announced he’d assembled financial commitments worth $46.5 billion to buy the company and said he was considering a tender offer – or going over management’s head to make his bid directly to shareholders.”

The financing includes commitments from Morgan Stanley and other financial institutions for, respectively, $13 billion and $12.5 billion. An equity commitment from Musk himself would cover the amounts not funded by those two, currently expected to be approximately $21 billion.

A Twitter rep didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment. The company last weighed in late last week  “Twitter in receipt of the updated, non-binding proposal from Elon Musk, which provides additional information regarding the original proposal and new information on potential financing. As previously announced and communicated to Mr. Musk directly, the Board is committed to conducting a careful, comprehensive and deliberate review to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the Company and all Twitter stockholders.”

Twitter, which will report its latest earnings on Thursday, has had financial and growth challenges and Musk’s offer is considered rich. Some names of other potential buyers or financiers were floated for a possible rival offer but none may have materialized.