Twitter is reportedly reconsidering Elon Musk’s offer to purchase the platform for $43 billion, the Wall Street Journal reported Sunday.
The Journal said the platform might be more receptive to a deal after Musk received $46.5 billion in financing.
They added that Twitter allegedly attempted to determine its own worth and met with Musk Sunday to discuss the offer:
“The potential turnabout on Twitter’s part comes after Mr. Musk met privately Friday with several shareholders of the company to extol the virtues of his proposal while repeating that the board has a “yes-or-no” decision to make, according to people familiar with the matter. He also pledged to solve the free-speech issues he sees as plaguing the platform and the country more broadly, whether his bid succeeds or not, they said.”
Jeff Gramm, a portfolio manager with Bandera Partners LLC, a shareholder of Twitter, said the platform cannot simply decline the offer without a suitable alternative.
“I’m not sure what that can be at this stage besides finding a higher bid,” he said.
Lauri Brunner, manager of Thrivent Asset Management LLC’s large-cap growth fund, said Musk’s track record of success could benefit the company, according to The Journal. “He has an established track record at Tesla,” she said. “He is the catalyst to deliver strong operating performance at Twitter.” Thrivent has about a 0.4 percent stake in Twitter and holds shares in Tesla.
Musk said Twitter’s board would not be paid if he purchased the platform. “Board salary will be $0 if my bid succeeds, so that’s ~$3M/year saved right there,” he tweeted. He also said Twitter would be the opposite of Facebook if he bought it.
"As for media sort of ownership, I mean, you've got Mark Zuckerberg owning Facebook and Instagram and WhatsApp, and with a share ownership structure that will have Mark Zuckerberg the 14th still controlling those entities," he said. "Like, literally," Musk added. "We won't have that at Twitter."
NewsBusters wrote last week that Musk said that his offer was “not a way to make money” but was instead about restoring free speech. "I'm not saying that I have all the answers here, but I do think that we want to be just very reluctant to delete things," he noted. "And just be very cautious with permanent bans. Timeouts, I think, are better than permanent bans."
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