Their position was not in doubt. Twitter shareholders officially approved, Tuesday, September 13, the plan to buy the platform by multi-billionaire Elon Musk, for an amount of 44 billion dollars.
The adoption of the proposal was expected, despite the legal battle that has opened in recent months between the founder and CEO of Tesla and the social network. And for good reason: Mr. Musk had offered to buy back the shares at a price significantly higher than their current price. This favorable vote of the shareholders thus consolidates the social network with the approach of the opening of the lawsuit which will oppose the two parts.
U-turn and legal battle
At the beginning of July, Elon Musk unilaterally ended his takeover offer, accusing the social network of having failed in its contractual obligations, by providing it with erroneous or incomplete data, in particular on the number of false accounts. Some observers explain that it is more likely the fragility of the financial package designed by Mr. Musk that could be the cause of this reversal.
The social network has dismissed the charges and sued the Tesla boss for breach of the buyout agreement, in order to force him to honor his commitment. A hearing is scheduled for October 17 in a court in Delaware, United States.
Coincidentally, the shareholders’ vote ended when a US Senate parliamentary committee was to hear, late Tuesday afternoon, the former head of IT security at Twitter, Peiter “Mudge” Zatko. Mr. Zatko, fired at the start of the year, claims that Twitter has seriously failed in its security and privacy operations, which the social network disputes.