Twitter shareholders officially have until Tuesday, September 13 to vote on Elon Musk’s proposed takeover of the social network for $44 billion, but, according to sources at the Reuters news agency, the proposal has already already won the majority of votes.
The Reuters sources asked to remain anonymous before the official announcement of the results. Neither Twitter nor representatives for Elon Musk responded to a request for comment. But the adoption of the proposal would not be a surprise: Mr. Musk had proposed a buyback of the shares at a price significantly higher than their current price.
flip-flop
Meanwhile, Mr. Musk, founder and chief executive of Tesla, backtracked on his offer in early July. He accuses the social network of having failed in its contractual obligations, by providing him with erroneous or incomplete data, in particular on the number of false accounts; some observers explain that it is more likely the fragility of the financial package devised by Mr. Musk which could be at the origin of this reversal.
The social network has dismissed the charges and sued Elon Musk for breaching the buyout agreement. A hearing is scheduled for October 17 in a court in Delaware, United States.
Coincidence of the calendar, the vote of the shareholders ends whereas a parliamentary committee of the Senate must hear, Tuesday at the end of the day, the former chief of the computer security of Twitter, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko. Mr. Zatko, fired at the start of the year, claims that Twitter has seriously failed in its security and privacy operations, which the social network disputes.