Oliver Haslam on April 16, 2022, 4:41 am

Twitter’s Board Blocks Elon Musk’s Buyout Plan

Twitter’s board of directors has issued a “shareholder right’s plan” that will effectively block Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s hostile takeover of the company. The plan was the subject of a press release shared on Friday.

The move is what financiers call a poison pill and is designed to block such takeovers, something outlined in the press release shared by Twitter.

The Rights Plan is intended to enable all shareholders to realize the full value of their investment in Twitter. The Rights Plan will reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders.

Musk has offered to buy Twitter outright and currently owns 9% of the company. In his announcement of the buyout attempt, Musk said that he would be forced to sell his shares if it was unsuccessful, essentially threatening a move that would surely tank share prices.

Twitter’s board clearly doesn’t intend to accept Musk’s offer and we will now see where things go from here.

Musk could fight on or simply pull his money out of the company, likely causing a drop in share price as mentioned earlier — something that will be a bitter pill to swallow for other shareholders.