Can Elon Musk actually buy Twitter?
The Wall Street Journal reports:
The richest man in the world should be able to buy anything he wants. But Elon Musk’s $43 billion bid for Twitter Inc. looks like a long shot.
Shareholders aren’t rallying behind him. The board is preparing to throw up roadblocks. And it isn’t clear that Mr. Musk, despite his vast fortune, can come up with the money.
Like everything with the Tesla chief executive, crypto enthusiast and Twitter troll, Mr. Musk’s $54.20-a-share offer flouts nearly every norm in the merger playbook. The eccentricity that helped make him a billionaire could now be a liability in the eyes of Twitter’s board and the financial backers he’ll need.
Mr. Musk admitted at a TED Talk Thursday that he’s not sure he’ll actually pull it off, though he said he has “sufficient assets.” [Continue reading…]
Musk has a track record of not following through on announced agreements. This month, for instance, after he disclosed a 9.2 percent ownership stake in Twitter, the company offered him a seat on its board. He accepted, and other board members tweeted out cheery messages welcoming him.
Then, over the weekend, the social media company’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, announced that Musk had changed course at the last minute.
“Elon’s appointment to the board was to become officially effective 4/9, but Elon shared that same morning that he will no longer be joining the board. I believe this is for the best,” he wrote.
Daniel Ives, a managing director at Wedbush Securities, said that in spite of Musk’s history, he thinks the Twitter deal will happen: “We believe this is a serious offer… and it’s a soap opera that ultimately ends in Musk owning Twitter.” [Continue reading…]