Twitter May Soon Announce It Really Is Selling Itself to Elon Musk

Twitter is set to accept, as early as Monday, an offer to sell itself to Elon Musk for $43 billion in cash, it was reported today.

Reuters, citing sources, said the company “may announce the $54.20-per-share deal as soon as later today once its board has met to recommend the transaction to Twitter shareholders”—but added a note of caution, saying it was “always possible that the deal collapses at the last minute.”

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The once far-fetched prospect of Musk taking control of Twitter as a private company follows several weeks in which the world’s richest man has publicly stoked speculation about his intentions, with a combination of overt statements and ambiguous tweets.

When Musk first announced his intention to take the network private, he said that his $54.20-per-share was his “best and final” offer, and he has stuck to that price in a move that some observers have said recalls the take-it-or-leave-it approach championed by previous world’s richest man Warren Buffett.

Initially Twitter seemed poised to fight the takeover attempt with a “poison-pill” share offer that would have diluted Musk’s stake; however Reuters now says that the sale is likely to go ahead.

It said a sale “would represent an admission by Twitter that its new chief executive Parag Agrawal… is not making enough traction in making the company more profitable.”

The Financial Times said that the fact that Twitter’s shares have been trading below the offer level in previous weeks suggested doubts on Wall Street that the deal would pan out. However the stock rose 5 percent to $51.47 in pre-market trading Monday.

Musk announced his audacious bid amid a series of comments questioning Twitter’s commitment to free speech, prompting speculation that one of his first actions as its new proprietor would be to allow Donald Trump back on the social network. Trump was banned after the Capitol riot and insurrection in 2021.

Musk, who is calculated to be the world’s richest person by Forbes, is trying to buy Twitter privately with a huge loan from a group of banks led by Morgan Stanley.

If the deal happens, it will be one of the largest buyouts in corporate history.