On April 25, Twitter announced that it had accepted Elon Musk's takeover offer, which had finally bought Twitter at $54.20 per share for a total of about $44 billion.
Looking back at Musk's various actions around this matter in the past month, it has undoubtedly made many "melon-eating masses" feel stunned. Earlier, on March 25, he posted several tweets that now appear to be "warm-up," including "Should the Twitter algorithm be open sourced?" "Do you think Twitter follows the principle of free speech?" " and other votes. The results show that 82.7% of users believe that Twitter's algorithm needs to be open sourced, and 70.4% of users believe that Twitter violates the principle of free speech.
Immediately after that, Musk tweeted on March 27 asking if a new (social) platform is needed. At that time, it was also thought that "Musk wants to buy Twitter?" ”
The big reversal, how Musk's acquisition of Twitter got its wish
When many netizens still thought that the big Twitter influencer was spitting, a merger statement released by the US Securities and Exchange Commission (hereinafter referred to as the SEC) on April 5 showed that it had held nearly 9.1% of the company's shares and offered to buy 100% of Twitter's shares for "$54.20 per share in cash (about $43 billion)."
At this point, the vast majority of the "melon-eating masses" realized that the new world's richest man was not joking. Although it is impossible to know whether Musk's idea was rooted as early as March 14 when he acquired Twitter shares as a passive investment, it is clear that the matter has developed in an unpredictable direction since the moment he refused to join Twitter's board of directors (i.e., not be bound by board rules).
Of course, Twitter has also tried to resist a little, including launching the "poison pill project" to face Musk's acquisition. That is, in order to maintain its controlling interest, through a large number of new shares issued at a low price, the proportion of shares in the hands of the acquirer will decrease, and at the same time increase its acquisition cost. But now it seems that in the end, Twitter agreed, perhaps because Musk gave really "too much".
But can Musk really come up with $44 billion in "cash"? At present, it seems that the probability is not enough. According to the announcement disclosed on April 25, Musk has raised $46.5 billion. Of that, $21 billion came from Musk's personal assets, but no indication of how this part would be financed, and another $25.5 billion, mostly provided by Morgan Stanley and other institutions (including short-term loans such as bridge loan financing, as well as loans secured by shares of listed companies held by Musk).
Despite this, Musk has leveraged nearly $46 billion of funds on his own without relying on any PE agency. Even people familiar with the matter revealed that "due to the need to decide in a few days whether to provide multi-billion dollar financing, and the lack of detailed information on Twitter's financial status, they mostly have to rely on Musk's plans."
From another point of view, in fact, Musk's Twitter account is no different from public relations
At the same time, it was not only investors who expressed their doubts, but also employees of Twitter. According to relevant reports, more than a dozen Twitter employees have complained that "the company's management has said nothing about Musk's acquisition progress, which makes us panic because we don't know how our salary will change in the future and what the value of the stock in our hands is." As a result, even Twitter employees had to ask the company's CEO, Parag Agrawal, and even had to ask Max himself on Twitter.
Although in the capital game, especially when the board of directors negotiates with bankers, lawyers, and public relations firms, the negotiators are mostly "silent" and hidden under the table. But Twitter employees, who were also completely in the dark, were forced to become "melon eaters", which was also the first time in the world.
How not to play cards according to the routine seems to have become Musk's unique "style". But in connection with Musk's announcement of the dissolution of Tesla's public relations team, it is not difficult to find that Twitter has undoubtedly become a "public place" for Musk to "give speeches", and Musk's speculative account is more like the "public relations team" owned by the rich man with several companies.
Musk buys Twitter, and it is unlikely that he will lose money
So far, the deal doesn't seem to have the "serious" atmosphere that viewers want, but it may not be an "impulse consumption" of Musk's whims. So to judge whether the $44 billion purchase of Twitter is worth it, we might as well do the math first.
Even if Musk often talks on Twitter, and even openly expresses dissatisfaction with Twitter's current CEO Parag Agravar, he also posted a "terrier map" to provoke Bill Gates' figure a few days ago. But it is undeniable that in the nearly 15,000 tweets he has released, the most commonly mentioned is "Tesla" and "SpaceX", and these two topics have taken turns to become the focus of attention, and it is likely to depend on the development of these two companies at that time. So there is a view that in essence, Musk's tweets may still be for business.
Previously, in 2020, Tesla disbanded the core public relations team at its headquarters in the United States, retaining only the public relations departments in Europe and Asia. But for the car as a product, its marketing expenses can almost be described as "too expensive". According to public data, in fiscal 2020, Toyota Motor's annual marketing and other related expenses were 2,206.205 billion yen (about $17.2 billion), and Tesla's was $3.145 billion. In 2019, Volkswagen, which ranks first in the annual marketing expenses of car companies, has reached about $23.1 billion.
Once such data is compared, it is not difficult to find out whether Musk's use of $44 billion to buy Twitter's "exclusive promotion position" for many years in the future is still "cost-effective". What's more, Musk's company in addition to Tesla running on the ground, Boring digging tunnels, as well as the heavenly SpaceX company, and Neuralink, which is studying brain-computer interfaces, and so on. These companies are all around cutting-edge technology, focusing on the field of technology, although not all business is to C, but from the perspective of publicity, Musk's Twitter account can obviously play a big role in this matter.
Putting everything on the table, will the attacking Musk encounter obstacles
In fact, technology companies invest in media is not new, the former CEO of Musk's Amazon Jeff Bezos , who recently bought the Washington Post for $250 million, and Marc Benioff, founder of CRM software service provider Salesforce, also bought Time for $190 million. Nowadays, it is obvious that the role of social platforms is also much greater than that of the above media, so Twitter for Musk may be the best choice at the moment.
From the warm-up at the end of March, to the beginning of April, Musk became Twitter's first external majority shareholder, and was resisted by Twitter's desire to launch the "poison pill plan", and finally reached a takeover offer at the end of April, which almost became the focus of the global media from the beginning. In other words, Twitter's role as a global public platform is also vividly demonstrated in the acquisition game between Musk and Twitter.
According to Wells Fargo analyst Brian Fitzgerald, "While some major shareholders have publicly opposed Musk's bid, arguing that he is undervaluing the company, we expect the deal to be approved by shareholders and expect the deal to be completed relatively quickly, as we do not expect the deal to be subject to significant scrutiny at the regulatory level."
If the acquisition officially lands, Musk will also take over Twitter in the next few months. So next, where will the Twitter account, as the first source of information for Musk and his company, go, and how will Musk pick up the hot potato of the social platform? But not long ago, Musk tweeted that "through suffering, you can pick the stars (Per Aspera Ad Astra)" statement, which seems to have become inevitable.
【The picture of this article comes from the network】