Elon responds ‘indeed’ to a tweet from entrepreneur David Sacks saying ‘the game is rigged’ if Tesla CEO can’t buy Twitter – after Musk launched hostile $43b takeover bid this week
Tesla‘s CEO agreed with a tweet saying the ‘game is rigged’ if he can’t buy Twitter in an ongoing battle for the company.
Elon Musk, 50, agreed with podcast platform entrepreneur David Sacks on Saturday that it would ‘indeed’ be rigged if he couldn’t buy Twitter.
Sacks had tweeted on Thursday: ‘If the game is fair, Elon will buy Twitter. If the game is rigged, there will be some reason why he won’t be able to. We’re about to find out how deep the corruption goes.’
Musk’s offer to buy the platform values Twitter at $54.20 per share – above the closing price ahead of his bid, but below a high of $77.06 hit in February of last year. The Twitter board said on Thursday it would block Musk’s offer.
Musk is reportedly talking with potential partners about joining him in a bid to wrestle control of Twitter if Plan A doesn’t stick. The New York Post said sources close to the deal told them Musk was mulling partnering with private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners, which was planning to co-invest with him in 2018 when he was considering taking Tesla private.
It’s another push from the billionaire for the company to hand over the keys in their ongoing tumultuous bid to buy the social platform. Earlier this week, Musk offered $43 million for the company after it was announced he was the largest shareholder in the company, with a 9.2 percent stake. Shortly after, the Vanguard Group surpassed Musk with 10.3 percent.
Musk and the Vanguard Group hold a significantly higher portion of shares than Twitter’s board, including Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who only owns 0.063 percent, according to a tweet Musk replied to on the plat.
The highest shares owned by someone on the board goes to co-founder Jack Dorsey, at a reported 2.2 percent. Dorey recently announced he is leaving the company.
Chris Baake, who composed a chart showing the board’s shares that he also tweeted, wrote: ‘I’m not sure he’s prepared to take on a couple PhDs, a few MBAs, and a Baroness who use Twitter once a year (to reset their passwords) and collectively own 77 shares of the company.’
The Space-X founder responded: ‘Wow, with Jack departing, the Twitter board collectively owns almost no shares! Objectively, their economic interests are simply not aligned with shareholders.’
Another Twitter user pointed out that the board only owns 0.12 percent of the social media platform and said they were ‘threatened to dilute their shareholder’s stake in the company.’
Musk attempted to defend the board, writing: ‘In fairness to the Twitter board, this might be more of a concern about other potential bidders vs just me.’
He also pointed out in other tweets he interacted with that some members of Twitter’s board don’t even use the platform.
Earlier this week, the richest man in the world responded to a tweet of his own that itself is more than four years old, showing he shared his passion for the social media platform.
‘I love Twitter’, Musk declared in a December 2017 tweet. ‘How much is it?’, he responded minutes later.
The tweet, almost certainly forgotten about by all except Musk, received a follow-up response from the billionaire on Friday night with an upside-down smiley emoji.
