Continue the soap opera between Twitter and Musk While a race against time is underway to close the maxi acquisition of 44 billion dollars before October 17, the day on which the hearing of the trial is scheduled which should establish who between the two parties was right after the step back by Tesla's number one, the newspapers continue to talk about the phantom super app capable of enclosing other apps and numerous functions that Musk would like to create in the coming years.
In this context, Reuters announced a financial novelty that could further complicate the life of the visionary entrepreneur.
The Musk-Twitter soap opera in a nutshell
Let's make a summary of the previous episodes: in April Musk had put up $54,2 a share, or $44 billion, to buy Twitter. Three months later, in July, the patron of Tesla had backtracked, accusing Twitter of failing to provide real data on spam and bots. The fake accounts, in his opinion, are higher than the 5% indicated by the platform. The company had reacted causing him in a Delaware court to force him to honor the commitment, arguing that the bot issue was a pretext to exit an operation that Musk did not deem more advantageous.
The first hearings weren't very favorable for Musk: on the one hand, Judge Kathaleen McCormick authorized him to use the revelations of an internal "mole", the former Twitter security chief, Pieter Zatko, according to whom the company deceived the American authorities even on false accounts, on the other hand rejected his request to postpone the trial because "even a four-week delay would risk doing Twitter too much damage to justify".
In any case, Musk's lawyers fear that, despite the leak, it would be difficult to prove the adverse material effects of his allegations, which are a requirement to exit the contract.
The reverse of the reverse came on Tuesday: with a blow of the sponge, Musk canceled the last 6 months and offered to buy twitter for 44 billion dollars, i.e. the exact same amount offered in April.
Apollo and Sixth Street out of deal
According to what revealed by Reuters, Apollo Global Management and Sixth Street Partners, which were expected to offer $1 billion preferred equity financing as part of the deal, are currently no longer in talks with Musk.
The negotiations would in fact have concluded months ago, just before the July reverse and now it seems that the funding has definitively vanished.
According to the news agency, therefore, Musk will provide much of the $44 billion through funds it raised by selling its stake in Tesla and leaning on equity financing from large investors, while major banks pledged $12,5 billion.
Musk wanted a 30% discount
But there's more. The New York Times citing sources close to the dossier, he says Elon Musk was aiming at get 30% discount on Twitter purchase price. The lawyers of the Tesla patron had offered approx 31 billion dollars for the acquisition compared to 44 billion put on the plate at the beginning. During the negotiations, however, the discount was then reduced to 10%, and then definitively faded, bringing the value of the deal back to the initial price. Confirmation also comes from Wall Street Journal, according to which Twitter and Musk have argued unsuccessfully for weeks on one possible price reduction before Musk changed his mind and decided to proceed on the basis of the terms set out in the beginning.
