Twitter Inc. Executives told employees Thursday that the $ 44 billion deal to sell the company to billionaire Elon Musk is proceeding according to plan and they will not renegotiate it with an agreed price of $ 54.20 per share.
Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top lawyer and head of policy, told staff at an all-hands meeting that there was “nothing like a deal stuck” according to people attending the meeting. He turned down Musk’s claims last week that he was breaking the deal to learn more about the number of bots and spam accounts on social media services.
Twitter stocks jumped about 2% in the news of the meeting, which was first reported by Bloomberg. Earlier, the stock fell 1.7%.
Other top Twitter executives, including Chief Executive Officer Parag Agarwal and Finance Chief Ned Segal, also addressed the staff, who they said did not want to be identified for discussing internal business. The company-wide video call was intended to lead the group to discuss the deal after Twitter submitted its proxy statement to the Securities and Exchange Commission this week, outlining the history and terms of the transaction.
Executives addressed a number of questions about the transaction, including whether Twitter would legally force Musk to buy the company under its terms. Gaddafi assured staff that Musk would have to “do everything possible” to secure his funding, and that it was possible that Twitter could “try” to apply the terms of the agreement “if we ever need to do so in court.” Reaching this step will be “quite rare”.
Earlier this week, Musk suggested he would be keen to renegotiate his contract with Twitter. The company’s stock is currently trading at $ 37.45 per share, less than the offer price.
Thursday’s all-hand assembly was the latest in a string of internal meetings aimed at helping employees better understand the sales process. Segal discusses the gap between Twitter’s stock price and Mask’s offer, explaining to staff how it reflects some skepticism that the deal will happen. He added that executives are still involved with Mask and his team and are working with them “regularly” throughout the process to prepare for the possibility of taking over the reins of power. Segal also discusses how Twitter’s board decided to sell the mask, which included an analysis of Twitter’s business estimates if an agreement had not been reached.
Gaddafi added that he believes Musk will be able to vote on his shares at Twitter’s annual shareholder meeting, scheduled for May 25. The shareholder vote on whether the agreement will be approved will take place at a later date
Twitter has been in a stalemate since receiving a proposal from the company’s board mask in late April. Despite agreeing to the deal, Musk continued to criticize Twitter and its policies, and recently suggested that the company was lying about the number of daily users that would be classified as spam. He said the deal was “on hold” until further notice. After Agarwal posted a long thread earlier this week explaining Twitter’s method for calculating spam accounts, Musk responded to the CEO with a pop emoji.
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