Elon Musk tweeted on Friday that his $44-billion cash deal for Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) is \u201ctemporarily on hold\u201d while he waits for the social media company to provide data on the proportion of its fake accounts.
Twitter shares initially fell more than 20% in premarket trading, but after Tesla CEO Musk sent a second tweet saying he remained committed to the deal they regained some ground. The stock was off 12% in heavy volume ahead of the market open as investors fretted over the takeover.
Musk, the world\u2019s richest person, decided to waive due diligence when he agreed to buy Twitter on April 25, in an effort to get the San Francisco-based company to accept his \u201cbest and final offer\u201d of $54.20 per share.
Since then, technology stocks have plunged amid investor concerns over inflation and a potential economic slowdown.
The spread between the offer price and the value of Twitter shares had widened in recent days, implying less than a 50% chance of completion, as investors speculated that the downturn would prompt Musk to walk or seek a lower price. read more
\u201cTwitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam\/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,\u201d Musk told his more than 92 million Twitter followers.
Spam or fake accounts are designed to manipulate or artificially boost activity on services like Twitter. Some are tied to improve commercial results, while others are designed to create an impression that something or someone is more popular.
Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment. There was no immediate reaction from the investors that Musk tapped last week to raise $7.1 billion in funding.
Musk tweeted a Reuters story from ten days ago that cited the fake account figures. Twitter has said that the figures were an estimate and that the actual number may be higher.
The estimated number of spam accounts on the microblogging site has held steady below 5% since 2013, according to regulatory filings from Twitter, prompting some analysts to question why Musk was raising it now.
\u201cThis 5% metric has been out for some time. He clearly would have already seen it\u2026 So it may well be more part of the strategy to lower the price,\u201d said Susannah Streeter, an analyst at Hargreaves Lansdown.
Representatives for Musk did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
Tesla\u2019s stock, meanwhile, rose 7% in premarket trading. The shares have lost about a quarter of their value since Musk disclosed a stake in Twitter of April 4, amid concerns he will get distracted as Tesla\u2019s chief executive and that he may have to sell more Tesla shares to fund the deal.
Elon Musk\u2019s Twitter profile is seen on a smartphone placed on printed Twitter logos in this picture illustration taken April 28, 2022. REUTERS\/Dado Ruvic\/Illustration
There is plenty of precedent for a potential renegotiation of the price following a market downturn. Several companies repriced agreed acquisitions when the COVID-19 pandemic broke out in 2020 and delivered a global economic shock.
In one instance, French retailer LVMH (LVMH.PA) threatened to walk away from a deal with Tiffany & Co. The U.S. jewelry retailer agreed to lower the price by $425 million to $15.8 billion.
Acquirers seeking a get out sometimes turn to \u201cmaterial adverse effect\u201d clauses in their merger agreement, arguing the target company has been significantly damaged.
But the language in the Twitter deal agreement, as in many recent mergers, does not allow Musk to walk away because of a deteriorating business environment, such as a drop in demand for advertising or because Twitter\u2019s shares have plunged.
Musk is contractually obligated to pay Twitter a $1 billion break-up fee if he does not complete the deal, and the language in the deal contract appears to cap any damages that Twitter can seek from Musk to that level. But the contract also contains a \u201cspecific performance\u201d clause that a judge can cite to force Musk to complete the deal.
In practice, acquirers who lose a specific performance case are almost never forced to complete an acquisition and typically negotiate a monetary settlement with their targets.
\u201cThe nature of Musk creating so much uncertainty in a tweet (and not a filing) is very troubling to us and the Street and now sends this whole deal into a circus show with many questions and no concrete answers as to the path of this deal going forward,\u201d Wedbush analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a note.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Elon Musk tweeted on Friday that his $44-billion cash deal for Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) is \u201ctemporarily on hold\u201d while he waits for the social media company to provide data on the proportion of its fake accounts.Twitter shares initially fell more than 20% in premarket trading, but after Tesla CEO Musk sent a second tweet saying […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":266708,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-266691","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=266691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/266691\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/266708"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=266691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=266691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nagalandpost.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=266691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}