Image source @Visual China
Original author James Clayton, edited by Liandede Translation.
It's a cool night in late March San Jose .
A hastily organized meeting was arranged at an Airbnb to entertain the richest man in the world.
This meeting is of great significance to Twitter. Elon Musk (Elon Musk) has recently become the largest shareholder of Twitter. There are now rumors that he wants to join the company's board of directors.
When Twitter chairman Bret Taylor arrived at the venue, the situation was not exactly what he expected.
According to reports, he texted Musk that it was "elected the strangest place in my recent meeting."
"I think they are looking for Airbnb near the airport, where there are tractors and donkeys ," Taylor told Musk.
However, the meeting went smoothly.
A few days later, it was reported that Musk would join the Twitter board.
This is just the beginning. The next six months will witness one of the craziest and most intermittent transactions in Silicon Valley history.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal / Image source: BBC
html In early April, Musk seemed satisfied with his board position on Twitter, and he often tweeted about changes that might happen to the company.However, his private meeting with Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal did not go well. The two have different opinions on how to fix the platform. Musk felt very frustrated.
It is said that he had sent Taylor such a text message, "It won't work to trim Twitter by chatting with Parag", "We need to take fierce action."
htmlOn April 14, the billionaire publicly stated that he wanted to acquire Twitter, and it was a full-scale acquisition.He proposed to acquire Twitter for $44 billion (£38 billion). Twitter's board of directors initially rejected the offer and even set up a "poison pill" clause in an attempt to prevent Musk from forcibly buying the company.
Then things changed again. After careful consideration, the Twitter board decided to accept the deal. On April 25, Twitter announced that it would accept the offer.
Musk wrote on Twitter: "Yesssss!!!"
Image source: Twitter
Musk believes that Twitter has lost its direction. He said Twitter often restricts speech, and as the world's "town hall" it needs to put freedom of speech above everything else.
Musk wrote in an offer to Twitter on April 14:
The reason I invest in Twitter is that I believe it now has the potential to become a global platform for free speech, and I believe that free speech is a social responsibility for a functioning democracy.
However, since I invested in Twitter, I now realize that with the current situation, Twitter neither thrives nor meets the needs of society. Twitter needs to transform into an private company .
So, I proposed to acquire 100% of Twitter shares in cash in $54.20 per share, a price of 54% premium to the day before I started investing in Twitter and 38% premium to the day before I publicly announced my investment news. My offer is the best and final price I can give. If this price is ultimately not accepted, I will reconsider my position as a shareholder.
Twitter has extraordinary potential and I will release it.
He also said in an interview at the TED 2022 conference held in Vancouver, Canada that he did not care about the "economy" at all.
But in the weeks and even months after the transaction was completed, technology stock fell.
Inevitably, Twitter's value is also falling.
Soon, many analysts began to question whether Musk paid too much for Twitter.
And in public, he raised a different question - how many real accounts are there on Twitter?
The billionaire, who was named the world's richest man by Forbes and Bloomberg, has been complaining about the number of robots on the platform for years.
After his proposal was accepted, he repeatedly asked Twitter to provide data on its actual number of users.
Twitter executives shared their data, and according to the randomly sampled accounts, less than 5% of daily active users are bots. But this seemed to anger Musk.
Agrawal posted a long post on Twitter explaining how the company got the data, and Musk responded with a poop emoji.
Image source: BBC
transaction begins to break.
is not surprising, on July 8, Musk announced that he wanted to withdraw from the deal.
At that time, people were speculating whether he wanted to fight for a better price or really wanted to leave? This is hard to say.
Twitter ignored this. The company argued that Musk's agreement to acquire the company was legally binding and canceling the deal is not a good option now.
As both parties hired attorneys are very expensive, the court held a trial on Delaware on October 17 to decide whether Musk will be "forced" to acquire the company.
In court filings, Twitter argued that the company provided him with plenty of information about how many real users it has.
But Musk believes Twitter's number of bots may be several times as many as it publicly claims, and he even accused the company of fraud.
The public has also begun to question this. Most of Twitter's revenue comes from advertising, and advertisers are beginning to wonder how many advertisements are displayed to real people.
The battle between the two sides has also made Twitter very dispersed. Some employees want Musk to become their CEO; others privately, even publicly stated that Musk's acquisition will be a disaster for content review and the company's larger goals.
Another amazing twist took place just as Musk, Twitter, judges and journalists were all preparing for this seemingly inevitable lawsuit.
After various charges against Twitter, Musk suddenly announced that the deal would start again.
He said: "The acquisition of Twitter is a catalyst for creating an omnipotent App X."
Image source: Twitter
What changed his mind? Maybe he thinks he will lose the lawsuit. He was going to face testimony from a Twitter lawyer just days before he announced his change of mind. Maybe he wants to avoid a tormenting and potentially revealing the truth.
Taylor said on Twitter that the company is "committed to completing the transaction at the prices and terms agreed with Musk."
Twitter also asked the court to postpone the trial of the case rather than cancel it. Musk's lawyers retorted that Twitter "will not accept a positive answer."
Musk must take out the money before 17:00 BST on October 28 (that is, 0:00 Beijing time on October 29).
billions will be paid by his wealthy friends and bank. Binance CEO CZ Zhao Changpeng posted on social media, and Binance officially became one of the Twitter investors. The remaining money comes from Musk selling his share in Tesla .
Image source: Twitter
Now it seems that an agreement that once seemed difficult to deal with and impossible to be broken has finally been reached.
Image source: Twitter
This article was originally published on Liandede, authorized to be published by Titanium Media App, author: Song Song
