Elon Musk to buy Twitter for $44 billion

Twitter has accepted Elon Musk’s buyout offer. Musk is purchasing the social media giant for $54.20 per share, or about $44 billion. The Tesla chief will take the company private, and also said he planned to upgrade Twitter by protecting free speech, open-sourcing algorithms, fighting spam bots and “authenticating all humans.”

Twitter’s board unanimously approved the acquisition. The deal is expected to close sometime in 2022, although that will hinge on approvals from both regulators and shareholders.

The decision comes after a flurry of activity from Musk. The Tesla CEO bought a 9.2 percent share of Twitter in early April following criticism of the social media firm’s free speech policies. He argued Twitter was falling short of its duties as a “de facto public town square.” Twitter quickly said Musk would join its board of directors, but the tech executive decided against the move days later. While he didn’t say why he had second thoughts, the board appointment would have prevented him from owning more than 14.9 percent of the company — he couldn’t have taken control during his term.

Twitter was initially cautious and adopted a “poison pill” share strategy to prevent a hostile takeover. However, it reportedly gave Musk’s final offer a second look this weekend. The two sides are believed to have hashed out finer details at the last minute, such as financial guarantees if the purchase falls apart. In the announcement, Twitter’s independent board chair Bret Taylor said the company agreed to the buyout after a review process that concentrated on “value, certainty and financing.”

Musk still faces problems following this decision, including the SEC’s insider trading investigation and a class action lawsuit accusing him of stiffing shareholders through the timing of his Twitter investment disclosure. The Twitter buyout won’t help him escape that scrutiny. It won’t be surprising if there’s a significant change of direction at the social network, though, and this still means that Musk is now competing with Meta, Snap, TikTok (that is, ByteDance) and other social networking heavyweights.

We’d add that Twitter’s employees might also be less than thrilled. Sources for The New York Times said staff were largely left in the dark regarding the deal and throw their stock compensation plans into disarray. They were also worried Musk might undo years of efforts to fight “toxic” material. Some are excited, according to the insiders, but there is a chance some Twitter workers might balk at any significant changes in direction.

Twitter is reportedly re-examining Elon Musk’s $43 billion takeover bid

Twitter may be warming up to the idea of selling itself to Elon Musk. According to The Wall Street Journal, the company is re-examining Musk’s takeover bid after the billionaire announced he had the financial backing to get the deal done. When Musk fir…

HBO and HBO Max gained 3 million subscribers before splitting from AT&T

HBO Max and HBO picked up 3 million subscribers in the same quarter that Netflix lost 200,000 of them for the first time in years, Variety reported. The streaming/cable service reported earnings under former parent AT&T for the last time, as it’s set to become part of the new Warner Bros. Discovery media conglomerate.

The lion’s share of new HBO/HBO Max subs were in the US (1.8 mllion), and the services now count 48.6 million subscribers domestically and 76.8 million worldwide. That’s up 12.8 million over last year, showing solid growth. (HBO Max costs $15 per month ad-free or $10 with ads, and HBO on cable is $15 per month.)

However, it was still a drag on parent AT&T (for the last time). WarnerMedia revenue was down 32.7 percent over last year to $1.3 billion due to investments in HBO Max and the failed launch of CNN+.

That’s essentially why AT&T decided to divest WarnerMedia and focus strictly on its core telecom business. To wit, the company announced its largest gain in post-paid phone net additions in more than a decade. Excluding WarnerMedia and other divested businesses, AT&T revenue was $29.7 billion, up 2.5 percent over the same quarter last year.

With WarnerMedia and Discovery divested, AT&T plans to invest any free cash in 5G and fiber deployments (it still has $169 billion in debt, despite the $43 billion dollar deal to sell WarnerMedia.) “AT&T has entered a new era,” said CEO John Stankey in a prepared statement during the company’s earnings call.

Twitter 啟動「毒藥丸」來避免被 Musk 惡意收購

Elon Musk 在前天宣佈出價 430 億美元，想把 Twitter 收入囊中，但究竟此舉對現有的股東是否有利，Twitter 還需要時間討論與表決。為了避免在這當中 Musk 以收購零散股份的方式，繞過董事會達成實質的收購（即惡意收購），Twitter 董事會已經先一步啟動了所謂的「毒藥丸」策略來自保。…

Twitter initiates ‘poison pill’ to block Elon Musk’s takeover bid

The Twitter board isn’t willing to let Elon Musk buy the company without a fight. The board members unanimously approved a limited duration shareholder rights plan, which will be in place for one year starting today.

The rights will come into play if a single entity acquires at least 15 percent of Twitter’s outstanding common stock without the board’s approval. Should that become the case, certain shareholders will have the right to buy more stock. Flooding the market with new shares to dilute other investors’ holdings is called a poison pill strategy, and it’s designed to ward off a hostile takeover attempt.

Musk briefly became Twitter’s largest shareholder when it emerged he had quietly snapped up a 9.2 percent stake in the company. He was offered a seat on the board and if he had accepted, he would not have been allowed to build up an ownership stake of more than 15 percent. Musk turned down the board seat earlier this month, though. This week, Musk made an offer to buy the entire company for around $43 billion.

The company said in a press release that adopting the rights plan will “reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders.” In other words, the move will make it harder for Musk to take his buyout offer directly to shareholders and acquire their stakes in piecemeal fashion.

Twitter says the plan is similar to one carried out by other publicly traded companies that have been subject to a non-binding acquisition proposal. Notably, the rights plan doesn’t prevent Twitter from accepting a buyout offer if it believes that’s in the best interest of its shareholders.

Musk claimed in his buyout offer Twitter has “extraordinary potential” and that he would “unlock it.” During a TED Talk just hours after making the proposal, Musk argued that Twitter’s algorithm should be open source, “so anyone can see […] there’s no sort of behind-the-scenes manipulation, either algorithmically or manually.” He also suggested he’d err on the side of having less moderation and expressed reservation about issuing permanent bans to users who break the rules.