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  • On October 26 last year Elon Musk

  • walked into the Twitter offices carrying a kitchen sink.

  • It was an appropriate end to a draining few months

  • for everyone who had followed the twists

  • and turns of his $44bn takeover of Twitter.

  • No one initially expected that Musk would make a bid

  • to take the company private.

  • The billionaire founder of Tesla disclosed the stake

  • in the social media platform in early April,

  • becoming its biggest shareholder.

  • Ten days later he offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share.

  • Most of the world was still in the post-pandemic boom

  • where money was cheap.

  • Banks, including Morgan Stanley and Barclays,

  • offered to lend almost $13bn per transaction

  • and Musk posted his Tesla shares as collateral.

  • But shortly after Musk made his bid

  • and refused to do due diligence in order

  • to get the deal over the line, he

  • tried to walk back on the watertight merger agreement.

  • It became a captivating 'will he, won't he'

  • saga that solidified his reputation

  • as a mercurial billionaire whose defining characteristic is

  • unpredictability.

  • The fight was set to end up in Delaware,

  • where a judge would decide whether Musk

  • had to buy the company.

  • But just weeks before Twitter and Musk

  • were set to come to a head they drew up a settlement.

  • The repercussions of that deal have been widely felt.

  • Musk has removed more than two-thirds

  • of Twitter's employees and the banks that

  • helped finance the transaction are sitting on billions of debt

  • they aren't able to offload to investors.

  • Part of the reason is that markets

  • have taken a turn for the worse, but investors are also

  • unwilling to deal with Musk's eccentricities.

  • Musk has promised to turn Twitter

  • into a more efficient and open tool for sharing information,

  • while trying to keep wary advertisers on the platform

  • so he can service the enormous amount of debt

  • weighing the company down.

  • What is clear is that Musk has become

  • perhaps the most powerful figure in the media industry

  • and in control of a platform that

  • is used daily by some of the world's

  • most influential figures.

  • Let that sink in.

On October 26 last year Elon Musk

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Why was Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter such a tortuous saga? | FT Due Diligence

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    林宜悉 發佈於 2023 年 07 月 22 日
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