Months after Elon Musk made an offer to buy Twitter for $44 billion, the social media platform’s shareholders have finally agreed to the offer but that is late in the day.
The acceptance announcement came yesterday after shareholders voted to go ahead with the sale.
In April, after declining to join Twitter’s board, Musk offered to buy the platform for $44 billion. He offered all shareholders $54.20 per share, 38% more than the $45.85 per share it was a week before he made the offer.
While the Twitter board initially agreed to the deal in April, shareholders hadn’t made a decision yet.
In the months following the board’s decision, however, Musk and Twitter experienced a sticky situation that ended with Musk pulling out and Twitter suing Musk. Twitter reported that 5% of its 229 million users are spam bots but Musk argued, in May, that the percentage of spam bots on the platform is as high as 20%. This is especially a problem for a social media platform like Twitter where 90% of its revenue comes from advertisement, and an audience with ⅕ of spam bots doesn’t make for very good financial services.
Musk pulled out in July, citing Twitter’s alleged dishonesty as his reason.
Twitter sued and the duo are presently embroiled in a legal case at the Delaware Court of Chancery, with a trial expected to begin in mid-October.
Musk on the other hand is still trying to wash his hands clean of Twitter. Just a few days ago, the billionaire sent another letter to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) in his third attempt to terminate the deal.
