Elon Musk's Twitter Saga
Elon Musk's weeks-long drama with Twitter culminated in a takeover bid on Thursday as "Musk took aim at Twitter with a $43 billion cash offer with the Tesla CEO and billionaire entrepreneur saying the social media giant needs to be taken private to grow and become a platform for free speech," writes Uday Sampath Kumar & Chavi Mehta for Reuters.
It was revealed last week that Musk bought a stake in Twitter worth 9.2 percent making him the biggest shareholder in Twitter, four times that of founder Jack Dorsey. Set to join the board of the company on Saturday, the Tesla CEO then decided not to at the last minute, prompting much speculation as to his intentions. According to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, he thought Musk's decision was "for the best" and said the company must remain focused on its corporate goals.
Although some analysts did see Musk's weekend move as foreshadowing of a hostile takeover, what seemed to be an relatively anticlimactic end to the public spectacle took a dramatic final turn.
"Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it," Musk, who is already the company's second-largest shareholder, said in a letter to Twitter's board on Wednesday. "Since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form," Musk said.
Elon Musk targets Twitter with $43 billion cash takeover offer (Uday Sampath Kumar & Chavi Mehta - Reuters)
When Elon Musk was chosen as TIME's Person of the Year for 2021, Edward Felsenthal wrote, "For nearly a century, TIME has named a Person of the Year—the individual or group who most shaped the previous 12 months, for better or for worse. Person of the Year is a marker of influence, and few individuals have had more influence than Musk on life on Earth, and potentially life off Earth too."
TIME Person of the Year 2021: How We Chose Elon Musk (Edward Felsenthal - TIME)
In another piece from TIME, Alejandro de la Garza writes, "If you want to become a billionaire—and you didn’t happen to be born into the Saudi royal family—there are a few ways to get the job done. And then there’s what Elon Musk did."
How Elon Musk Built His Fortune—And Became the Richest Private Citizen in the World (Alejandro De La Garza - TIME)
UPDATE: Late Friday, Twitter’s board unanimously approved a plan that would allow existing shareholders to buy stocks at a substantial discount in order to dilute the holdings of new investors. The method, known as a “poison pill” suggests Twitter will fight Musk to prevent a hostile takeover and would go into effect if a shareholder were to acquire more than 15% of the company in a deal not approved by the board, according to The Guardian.
