Elon Musk takes over Twitter

They have a deal. It still has to close. Until it closes it's not a done deal.

The agreement says the deal can be terminated if it doesn't close by October 24, 2022, with a 6 month extension built in if there are antitrust or legal problems. Twitter can back out if stockholders vote agains the deal. And Twitter can still sell to someone else if they make a better offer. Musk can back out, too. If either back out, though, they owe the other a $1 billion termination fee.

Those are the basics.

At this point, Twitter's stock is trading at a discount to the buyout price based on whatever odds Mr. Market is pricing in that the deal doesn't close. It could be a regulatory problem, but more likely people are handicapping whatever tenuous finanancing Musk says he has lined up falling through or Musk deciding to walk away because of the value of his Tesla holdings dropping so much in the interum that he can't use it to finance the deal anymore or he just flakes out or he comes to his senses and realizes that eating a billion dollars at this point is going to save him tens of billions later if he follows through.

 

Musk has been furiously selling TSLA stock to raise cash. ... Regulatory filings last night revealed that he had sold almost $4 billion worth earlier this week after the Twitter deal was announced, and a little while ago. ... revealed he sold another $4.5 billion worth yesterday. All at lower and lower prices as the stock price went down.

He tweeted last night "no further Tesla sales planned after today," in a transparent attempt to prop / manipulate the stock price up. And of course, that's what is happening.

There is still so much liquidity and mispriced debt sloshing around, despite the bubble deflating a little since late last year on the back of fear that the Fed is really going to deal with the inflation by ending the party.