Twitter Shareholders Approve Musk’s $44bn Takeover

Elon Musk continues his legal fight to walk away from his $44bn deal to acquire Twitter, but the platform’s shareholders on Tuesday made clear their thoughts on the matter.

On Tuesday, Twitter shareholders voted overwhelmingly in favour of Musk’s takeover deal, with Twitter announcing in a statement that a preliminary count indicated that 98.6 percent of the votes cast were in favour of Musk’s deal.

The vote at the Special Meeting came days after Musk’s third letter to Twitter seeking to terminate their deal.

Shareholder approval

In his latest attempt Musk’s lawyers said that Twitter’s failure to seek Musk’s consent before paying a $7.75m severance funds to former employee Peiter “Mudge” Zatko in a June settlement violated a clause in the acquisition agreement.

Twitter however replied that Musk’s claim was invalid and that it hadn’t breached any terms of their agreement.

And now Twitter’s shareholders have given their clear backing to the Elon Musk deal.

“The shareholder approval satisfies the final condition precedent to the closing of the merger under the merger agreement (other than those conditions that by their nature are to be satisfied at closing),” noted Twitter on Tuesday.

“Twitter stands ready and willing to complete the merger with affiliates of Mr. Musk immediately, and in any event, no later than on September 15, 2022, the second business day following the satisfaction of all conditions precedent, which is the timeline required by the merger agreement,” it said.

“As previously announced, affiliates of Mr. Musk have delivered notices purporting to terminate the merger agreement,” the platform added. “Twitter continues to believe that Mr. Musk’s purported termination of the merger agreement is invalid and without merit, and that the Musk parties continue to be bound by the merger agreement and obligated to complete the merger on the agreed terms and conditions.”

Senate testimony

Zatko testified in front of the US Senate on Tuesday about what he alleged are Twitter’s serious security and privacy vulnerabilities, including allegedly having foreign intelligence agents on its payroll.

Zatko had alleged in his whistleblower complaint that Twitter had insufficient security protections and had obscured the true number of bot or spam accounts on the service, a key argument in Musk’s earlier efforts to terminate the buyout.

Twitter had in April this year said that less than 5 percent of Twitter users are spam or fake accounts.

Musk however believes the true figure of fake or bot accounts is closer to 20 percent or more.

Last month Musk sought to obtain the names of Twitter staff responsible for calculating what percentage of users are bot or spam accounts.

Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick of the Delaware Court of Chancery recently ruled that Musk could use Zatko’s claims in his lawsuit against Twitter, but denied a request to delay the 17 October trial.