Twitter accepted Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover deal on April 25.
New Delhi:
Elon Musk today said that his $44-billion deal for microblogging platform Twitter was temporarily on hold. Musk, the world's richest man, later tweeted that he was committed to the acquisition.
Here are 10 things we know about the Elon Musk-Twitter deal:
- On April 25, Twitter accepted Elon Musk's $44 billion takeover deal.
- Twitter has agreed to sell itself to an entity "wholly owned" by Musk. No co-investors were named in the statement by the social media company.
- Musk currently owns 9.1 per cent stake in Twitter and is the social media company's second-biggest shareholder. Twitter had previously invited Elon Musk to join its board of directors, but the SpaceX head declined.
- This is a giant leveraged buyout. Musk has raised $25.5 billion of fully committed debt and margin loan financing from a dozen banks to back the bid.
- The social media company had said it faced several risks until the deal with Musk is closed, including whether advertisers would continue to spend on Twitter amid "potential uncertainty regarding future plans and strategy."
- If Musk walks away from the deal, he is contractually obligated to pay a $1 billion break-up fee.
- Shares of the Twitter fell 17.7% to $37.10 in premarket trading today, their lowest level since Musk disclosed his stake in the company in early April.
- Elon Musk has been critical of Twitter's policies and has said that the social media company needs to be taken private to grow and become a genuine platform for free speech.
- He had also said that one of his priorities would be to remove "spam bots" from the platform.
- In an interview, Elon Musk also said he would reverse Twitter's ban on former US President Donald Trump.
