Twitter Inc. shareholders on Tuesday accepted Tesla chief Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid to buy the social media platform.
The total count of the votes, mostly cast online, during the shareholders meeting ensured their endorsement of the Musk’s bid. The shareholders accepted Musk’s $54.20-a-share offer to take the microblogging site’s possession. After making the bid in April, Musk has been attempting to cancel the deal before Twitter gave a green signal to it. Twitter has been pushing investors to confirm the deal, weeks ahead of the meeting as investors were given enough time to cast their votes weeks prior to the final day. Twitter’s shares were nil affected and closed at $41.74, much lower than Musk’s bidding price.
The shareholder meeting took place for seven minutes while the polling was limited to mere three minutes. They gave their final approval to the deal on Tuesday. After a few quick statements by Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, the vote was conducted during a brief online meeting.
Musk’s legal battle with Twitter
Elon Musk and Twitter have been on loggerheads since Tesla’s CEO made allegations against the microblogging site. Musk said in July that he was cancelling the agreement alleging Twitter of misleading him regarding company’s users and fake accounts. He cited issues in Twitter’s business. Twitter denied the allegations and sued Musk in a Delaware court while the former counter-attacked the company by suing it.
On Wednesday a US judge granted Musk permission to amend his complaint against Twitter, giving him a respite. The judge, however, turned down Musk’s request to put off the lawsuit since the billionaire’s acquisition deal with the dominant social media company fell through. According to Twitter, the deal was favoured by 98.6% votes while Musk, company’s largest shareholder allegedly did not vote. At the time of offering the deal, Musk possessed 10% of Twitter, amounting to more than 73 million shares.
Musk gets support from Twitter insider
For weeks, the attorneys for Twitter, based in San Francisco, and Elon Musk have been at odds over witnesses, exhibits, and even the court date. According to Twitter, Musk only needed the shareholder approval of the acquisition to proceed with the sale. Musk disagreed and has requested that the business provide additional disclosures.
Recently, Musk has made an effort to support his claims by citing information provided by Peter Zatko, a former senior Twitter executive-turned whistleblower, who has since come forward since the end of the last month. He claimed that Twitter has been hiding precious information from Musk during the deal. He also alleged that the company lacked security services.
The trial is now scheduled for the week of October 17 in Delaware Chancery Court.
