Recently, the topic around Musk and T has been continuous, and now we know that Musk has ambitions to acquire Twitter, and Twitter has launched the "Poison Pill Project" to "fight a war" to stop Musk, the "barbarian at the door".
Musk has previously refused to join Twitter's board and recently said that if he successfully acquires Twitter, he will no longer need the board. On April 18, local time, Musk tweeted:
If I succeed in buying Twitter, the board member's salary will become $0, which equates to saving Twitter about $3 million a year.
That's Musk's response to Gary Black, a partner at The Future Fund LLC, an American investment adviser. In his tweet, Blake listed the 2021 revenue of more than a dozen Twitter board members, stating:
I'd like to point out something obvious: If Musk takes Twitter private, Twitter board members will lose their jobs. It's actually a nice part-time job, and the general salary of these people (Twitter directors) is $250,000 to $300,000 a year.
Musk and Twitter's "Game of Thrones"
Musk announced last Thursday that it plans to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, with a total valuation of about $43 billion. In response, Twitter confirmed that it had received the proposal and said its board would review it.
Before proposing a full acquisition, Musk had previously acquired more than 9% of Twitter's shares, not only becoming Twitter's largest shareholder in one fell swoop, but also announcing that he would not join Twitter's board of directors.
Faced with Musk's hostile takeover, Twitter officially launched the "poison pill plan" on Saturday. It's a legal mechanism that could prevent Musk from significantly increasing his stake in Twitter.
The Poison Pill Plan, also known as the "Equity Dilution Anti-Takeover Measure" or the "Shareholders' Equity Plan", is a defensive measure used by the acquired company against potential hostile takeovers.
Twitter's board plans to dilute Musk's stake by increasing the number of shares in the market, which means Musk will need to spend more money to buy Twitter.
In addition, Twitter also announced that the board of directors has unanimously approved the one-year "poison pill plan".
Analysts pointed out that this aggressive move by Twitter's board is aimed at preventing Musk from increasing his stake by more than 15% in the open market, which may ultimately end Musk's plans to buy Twitter.
But Musk, the world's richest man, is worth about $260 billion, and the acquisition of Twitter worth about $43 billion should be "affordable."
While planning to buy, the outspoken Musk also publicly stated that Twitter needs to "transform" into a private company so that it can become a social media platform for free speech.
In addition, on April 14, local time, Musk also said in an interview at the TED conference in Vancouver that he did not care about making money from Twitter and admitted that his proposal to privatize it might not succeed.
Musk said the $54.20 per share quote was his highest and last offer, and if that offer wasn't accepted, he could dump his Twitter stake until he exited altogether.
As of the U.S. stock close on April 18, Twitter was up 7.48% at $48.45.
