Under shareholder pressure, Twitter executives have opened discussions with Tesla chief Elon Musk about a potential acquisition.
Earlier this year, Musk had purchased 9.2 percent of the social media company, and had offered to buy the entire company for $43 billion.
According to Reuters, two sources within Twitter confirmed the talks are on-going, however the stumbling block remains Musk’s decision to call the proposal his “best and final” offer. Twitter is hoping to land a more lucrative deal than the one offered by the South African-born billionaire.
As reported earlier, Musk will be financing up to $33.5 billion of the offer personally, including $12.5 billion leveraged against his Tesla stock. With the electric vehicle manufacture over performing Q1 expectations, Musk recently earned around $23 billion in payouts after Tesla met pre-agreed performance benchmarks.
Lawyer releases proof Musk had financing to take Tesla private in 2018
Elon Musk’s lawyer has released a series of text messages between his client and Yasir Al-Rumayyan of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund (PIF) in 2018 to prove that the Tesla chief had the financial backing to take Tesla private.
Musk is currently under investigation for a no infamous tweet in 2018 saying that he had secured funding to take Tesla private much as he is planning to do with Twitter today.
However, the SEC has long claimed that he did not have the financing ready, and the tweet amounted to influence on the stock price.
However, in a newly released set of messages, Musk and PIF’s Yasir are seen to be arguing about getting PIF to go public with the conversations they had about taking Tesla private.
Musk is seen to be getting increasingly irate as his Saudi partner refuses to talk to the press, telling Yasir that he “allowed people to think that I [Musk] was a liar.”
Shark Tank judge Kevin O’Leary backs Musk’s Twitter bid
Kevin O’Leary, famously known as Mr. Wonderful on Shark Tank USA, has backed Elon Musk’s proposal to acquire the social media giant, saying that Twitter is the “definition of hell on Earth” currently.
Speaking to CoinDesk TV, O’Leary went on to criticise the company for failing to provider shareholder value since it went public. He said,
“Twitter has done an abysmal job of creating value for shareholders since it went public just over nine years ago, creating zero value year after year.”
O’Leary went as far as to say that the worst development from this saga for Twitter would be if “Elon Musk goes away.”
