After it appeared Elon Musk was set to purchase Twitter for $54.20 per share, and despite the company’s board having earlier accepted the offer, the company is reportedly desperate to prevent the tech billionaire from finalizing the deal.
Musk tweeted “Plot twist!” in response to an article that acknowledged Twitter was refusing to accept his renewed bid of $44 billion.
Plot twist!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 6, 2022
From Teslarati:
Twitter is refusing to accept Elon Musk’s renewed bid of $44 billion for the social media company, according to a report from The Associated Press citing Elon Musk’s attorneys. This news comes after reports of Elon Musk’s asking the Delaware court to halt the upcoming trial. He renewed his offer to purchase the social media network this week and shared a few details about his goals.
“Buying Twitter is an accelerant to creating X, the everything app,” Elon Musk tweeted on Tuesday. He added that Twitter probably accelerates the new app by three to five years.
AP noted that earlier this week, Twitter said it intended to close the deal at the agreed-upon price but both sides were still booked for the October 17th trial in Delaware. Elon Musk’s attorneys said the trial should be adjourned to give the Tesla CEO more time to secure financing.
In a court filing, Elon Musk’s attorneys said, “Twitter will not take yes for an answer.”
“Astonishingly, they have insisted on proceeding with this litigation, recklessly putting the deal at risk and gambling with their stockholders’ interests,” the filing said.
Musk’s attorneys pointed out that by Twitter not dropping its litigation, the upcoming trial would “impede the deal moving forward.”
AP News added:
Chancellor Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, head of the Delaware Chancery Court, said Thursday that Musk and Twitter now have until Oct. 28 to close the deal. A trial originally set for Oct. 17 will happen in November if they don’t, she said.
Twitter had asked McCormick earlier Thursday to proceed with the trial, saying the billionaire refuses to accept the “contractual obligations” of his April agreement to buy the social media company and take it private.
Twitter disputed Musk’s claim that the San Francisco-based company is refusing to accept his renewed bid. Musk told Twitter earlier this week he’s ready to buy the company once again after trying to back out of the deal over the summer, accusing it of refusing to give him information about “spam bot” accounts on the service.
Twitter described Musk’s move to delay the trial as “an invitation to further mischief and delay” after his arguments for terminating the agreement haven’t had merit.
“Musk attorneys argued that Twitter was disagreeing with the trial delay “based on the theoretical possibility” of Musk not coming up with the financing, which they called ‘baseless speculation,'” AP News noted.
“They said Musk’s financial backers “have indicated that they are prepared to honor their commitments” and are working to close the deal by Oct. 28,” the outlet added.
“The deal would possibly close by the 2022 midterm elections if Twitter would drop its litigation. Instead, Twitter refuses to let the deal go through smoothly, and just announced a new midterm election initiative,” Becker News stated.
Join the conversation!
Please share your thoughts about this article below. We value your opinions, and would love to see you add to the discussion!