Even by the standards of Twitter, a company that has known a lot of chaos and dysfunction in its history, billionaire Elon Musk’s weeks-long effort to buy the company has proven uniquely turbulent — and there is no clear end in sight.
After Musk recently said he was pausing the deal so he could assess the amount of spam and fake accounts, it sparked speculation that the billionaire might be looking to renegotiate the deal — or back out altogether. His actions in the following days only reinforced this thinking.
Here’s a look back at the many twists and turns of one of the most high-profile tech deals in recent memory.
Jan 31: Musk starts building his Twitter stake
Musk quietly begins buying Twitter shares, building his stake in the company. But it will take months before he reveals this fact to the public.
March 14: Musk’s Twitter share tops 5%
Musk has a 5% stake in Twitter, but that fact was not revealed until the following month. Musk was required to disclose his stake within 10 days of crossing the 5% threshold, but he waited 21 days to do so. During that time, he continued to build his stake.
March 24: Asking if Twitter should change
The billionaire begins to make explicit statements about the platform from his account. “Twitter’s algorithm should be open source,” he said
bookswith a poll for users to vote “yes” or “no”.
The next day, Musk
Tweets In another poll of his followers: “Freedom of expression is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you think Twitter adheres strongly to this principle?”
March 26: Musk contacts Jack Dorsey
Musk is reaching out to Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey to “discuss the future direction of social media,” according to one company.
deposit The company later developed it. It’s common knowledge that tech founders have little to no
Billionaire Bromance On and off Twitter.
April 3: The Twitter leadership meets to discuss Musk
Twitter’s board and some members of its leadership team are meeting with representatives from law firm Wilson Soncini and JP Morgan to discuss the possibility of Musk joining the company’s board, according to
Later filing stock. Dorsey is said to have told the board that he and “Mr. Musk were friends,” according to the report.
At the meeting, the Twitter board discussed Musk’s desire to agree to “freezing provisions,” according to the filing. This would “effectively limit his public statements about Twitter, including making unsolicited public proposals to acquire Twitter (but not offers own) without the prior approval of Twitter’s board of directors.”
April 4th: Surprise! Musk has become the largest contributor to Twitter
musk
open To be the largest single shareholder in Twitter, with a stake of more than 9% in the company.
News of the purchase is sending the social media company’s shares up more than 20% in early trading and sparking a flurry of speculation about how Musk might push for changes to the platform.
April 5: Musk agrees to join the board of directors
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announces Musk . will
join Twitter board of directors. “Through conversations with Elon in recent weeks, it has become clear to us that he will add significant value to our board of directors,” Agrawal said.
Says In a post on Twitter.
As part of the appointment, Musk agrees to hold no more than 14.9% of the company’s stock while he remains on the board. His term on the board is set to last until 2024, according to A
regulatory deposit.
April 10: Just kidding. Musk abandons the board
Agrawal announced that Musk had decided
Not joining The board after all. “I think this is the best,” Agrawal wrote in A
letter Twitter team.
This reversal opens the door for Musk to take a bigger stake in the company — and releases him for tweeting his many thoughts about the company.
April 14: Musk offers to buy Twitter and “unlock” its potential
Musk stuns the industry through
make an attempt He acquired all the shares in Twitter he did not own, worth $41.4 billion. The cash offer represents a 38% premium to the company’s closing price on April 1, the last trading day before Musk revealed that he had become the company’s largest shareholder.
“I invested in Twitter because I believe in its potential to be a platform for freedom of expression around the world, and I believe that freedom of expression is a societal necessity for a functioning democracy. However, since I made my investment, I now realize that the company is not going to thrive nor serve this societal necessity in its current form. Twitter needs to turn into a private company, “Musque”
He writes In his presentation letter. “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I’m going to unlock it.”
April 15th: the poison pill
Twitter’s board of directors adopts “
poison pill“The verdict, a limited-term shareholder equity plan that will likely make it difficult for Musk to take over the company.
April 21: Musk contracts $46.5 billion in funding
musk
. liness $46.5 billion to fund the deal, including two debt commitment letters from Morgan Stanley and other unnamed financial institutions and one letter of commitment from himself, according to a regulatory filing.
The billionaire also reveals that he did not receive an official response from Twitter a week after the takeover offer. He said he was “seeking to negotiate” a specific acquisition agreement and “is ready to commence such negotiations immediately” – which appears to be a reflection of his statement in his takeover offer letter that it would be his “best and last” offer.
Although he is the world’s richest person, much of Musk’s wealth is tied up in Tesla stocks, and some followers of the company predict it may be difficult for Musk to raise debt against the historically volatile stock.
April 25: Twitter agrees to sell itself to Elon Musk
Twitter
Announces It agreed to sell itself to Musk in a deal estimated to be around $44 billion. At a conference later today, Mask
describe its presentation To buy Twitter in distinctive sweeping terms as being about the “future of civilization,” not just making money.
at
comprehensive meeting That afternoon, Twitter employees raised questions about everything from what the deal meant for their compensation to whether former US President Donald Trump would be allowed to return to the platform.
April 29: Musk spends billions of Tesla shares
Frada reveals musk
Sold $8.5 billion of his Tesla stock in the three days after Twitter’s board of directors approved the sale at an average of $883.09 per share. The filings did not reveal the reason for the sale, but it appears that Musk was raising funds to buy Twitter.
May 4th: With a little help from his billionaire friends
musk
Raise another $7 billion in financing the transaction. New investors include Oracle founder Larry Ellison, cryptocurrency platform Binance, and venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, according to
deposit.
May 6: Musk’s lofty goals revealed on Twitter
musk
aims to increase Twitter’s annual revenue reached $26.4 billion by 2028, up from $5 billion last year, according to a New York Times report, citing Musk’s packaged presentation to investors. To achieve this lofty goal, Musk intends to boost Twitter’s subscription revenue and build a payments business while reducing the company’s reliance on ad sales, according to the report.
May 10: Musk says he will recalculate Trump
Musk confirms what many have assumed for weeks: It will reverse Twitter
Trump ban If the deal is to buy the company.
“I think it wasn’t right to ban Donald Trump, I think that was wrong,” Musk said. I’m going to undo the permanent ban… Banning Trump from Twitter has not ended Trump’s voice, it will amplify it among the right which is why it is so morally wrong and totally stupid.
May 12: Partial hiring freeze and executive dismissal
Twitter
Confirms to CNN Business That the platform pauses most hiring and repackaging, except for “business critical” roles, and withdraws other non-labor costs prior to the acquisition. In addition, Twitter says general manager of consumers, Kayvon Beykpour, and leader of revenue products, Bruce Falck, are leaving the company.
May 13: Twitter deal is ‘temporarily suspended’.
musk
Tweets That the deal is pending, link it to
Reuters report Almost two weeks ago, the latest disclosure from Twitter about the amount of spam and fake accounts.
The number cited in the report, however, is in line with previous quarterly disclosures.
“Twitter deal is temporarily on hold pending account backing up details that spam/fake accounts already account for less than 5% of users,” Musk wrote on Twitter.
Shares of the social media site fell after Musk’s announcement, dropping more than 10% at the market open. Two hours after the suspension was announced, Musk says he is still intent on buying Twitter. ‘Still committed to the acquisition’
books.
Later in the day, Musk says his team is testing Twitter numbers and “chose 100 as the number for the sample size, because that’s what Twitter uses to account for <5% fake/spam/duplicate."
May 14: Oops. NDA problems?
Musk wrote on Twitter that Twitter’s legal team accused him of breaching a nondisclosure agreement when the billionaire revealed that the platform’s sample size for automated user verification was just 100 users.
“Twitter legal has been summoned to complain that I violated their non-disclosure agreement by revealing that the bot scan sample size is 100! This really happened,”
books musk.
May 16: Poop emoji
The standoff over bot accounts continues as Musk exchanges a series of tweets with Agrawal on the issue. after agrawal
Explain carefully How Twitter is trying to combat and measure spam accounts, Mask
respond With emoji on tube.
Musk is followed by a somewhat more profound question. “So how do advertisers know what they’re getting for their money?” Musk asked. “This is fundamental to Twitter’s financial health,” he added.
May 17: Musk says Twitter deal ‘cannot go ahead’
Musk declares that his
Twitter Acquisition “Can’t move forward” until he sees more information about the spread of spam accounts, claiming the social media platform falsified numbers in the filings. Without citing a source, he claims in a
tweet that Twitter is “fake accounts/spam 20%” and suggests that Twitter’s previous filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission were misleading.
In a statement, Twitter said it remained “committed to completing the transaction at the agreed price and terms as quickly as practicable.”
CNN’s Claire Duffy, Chris Isidore, Brian Fong, Rishi Iyengar and CNN’s Alison Morrow contributed to this report.
