According to CCTV news, the Associated Press reported on June 6 10 local time that Musk's lawyer said that Twitter refused Musk to buy his company at the original price of $44 billion and had asked a court in Delaware to stop the upcoming trial. It is reported that Musk said on the 4th that he plans to acquire Twitter at the original price of $44 billion.
It is worth noting that if Musk successfully acquires Twitter, former US President Trump will have the opportunity to return to Twitter. Since being "titled" last year, Trump can no longer use Twitter to interact with fans. But in May of this year, Musk said that "it is incorrect to ban Trump's speech? I will revoke the permanent ban on it. " Although Trump made it clear that he will not return, some insiders believe that he "can't resist the temptation of having nearly 90 million fan accounts in his heyday."
Musk and Twitter's "Repeated Pulling"
On April 4th, according to documents disclosed by the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk had held 73.49 million shares of common stock of Twitter at that time, accounting for 9. 1% of the common stock, which also made him the largest shareholder of Twitter. As soon as this news came out, Twitter's share price soared by 30% and closed up by 27%, the biggest one-day increase since Twitter went public. Since then, the Twitter board of directors announced the appointment of Musk as the company's director.
On April 25th, Twitter announced that it had reached an acquisition agreement with Musk, agreeing that Musk would acquire Twitter at a price of $54.20 per share, with a total amount of about $44 billion (equivalent to more than RMB 3 100 billion). Seven banks, including MorganStanley, BankofAmericaCorp and Barclays, agreed to provide it for Musk. According to the Wall Street Journal, this debt includes $6.5 billion in leveraged loans, $500 million in revolving credit lines, $3 billion in secured bonds and $3 billion in unsecured bonds. It is worth mentioning that since then, the US stock market has started to decline, especially for high-risk technology companies, so banks' preference for technology stocks is also decreasing.
It is expected that the transaction will be completed within this year and Twitter will become a private holding company. But then, the plot began to flip-Musk "repented". On July 9, Musk announced that he would terminate the transaction because Twitter had seriously violated many terms in the agreement, including the problem of false accounts. Subsequently, Twitter took Musk to court and asked him to continue to perform the previous acquisition agreement.
Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush, an American brokerage firm, said that Musk's announcement to temporarily shelve the acquisition of Twitter was like a "circus performance" and might eventually become a "horror show". And at that time, he also said that Musk's approach would lead to three results: first, the transaction failed; Second, Musk lowered the purchase price; Third, Musk withdrew from the transaction and paid a breakup fee of $654.38 billion.
Local time1October 6 10, Elon Musk's lawyer filed a motion again, asking the court to suspend legal proceedings to ensure the transaction. The document shows that Musk "is willing to complete the transaction at a price of $54.20, and the debt financiers are cooperating to fund the transaction. It is estimated that the transaction will be completed on or around June 28th. 10. "
On the same day, Judge KathaleenMcCormick of the Delaware Court of Equity ruled that the lawsuit on the acquisition of Musk and Twitter would be suspended, requiring both parties to complete the transaction before 5 pm on June 28th of/kloc-0. If the transaction is not completed by then, the trial will be reopened at 1 1.
Brewing new products?
In August this year, when a Twitter user asked Musk if he had considered creating his own social platform, he replied: "X.com". Earlier this month, at Tesla's annual shareholder meeting, Musk said that he had a very grand vision for X, that is, "something very useful to the world".
This X-Beacon is undoubtedly China's WeChat. Musk once commented on WeChat: it is a "super application" that integrates many different services, including information sending, social media, payment and food ordering. "If you are in China, you will live on WeChat." Musk said that it does everything, a bit like Twitter, plus application integration such as PayPal, and the interface is great. It's really a great application. There is no such software outside China.
Twitter is a relatively small platform with about 300 million monthly users. It has never experienced the exponential growth of products such as Tik Tok or Instagram, but it is regarded as an influential social software, which is widely used by politicians, world leaders and enterprises to share comments and opinions. On Wednesday, Musk said on Twitter that "the acquisition of Twitter may accelerate the creation of X."
When Musk first announced his intention to buy Twitter, he expressed his hope to open the platform and allow more "freedom of speech" and fewer restrictions-this is a tricky choice for any social media company because such software needs to comply with various regional regulations and laws.
At present, Musk has not outlined his plans for X ... but analysts say he will face many challenges.
IvanLam, a senior research analyst at CounterpointResearch in Hong Kong, said that to some extent, WhatsApp, Facebook, YouTube, Tik Tok and almost all apps are trying to "become super applications".
"It is actually very difficult to become a super application." He said in an interview.
Wang Xiaofeng, chief analyst of Forrester, who focuses on digital marketing and participation strategy in the Asia-Pacific region, agrees with this view and points out that the industry has become more saturated in recent years.
Wang Xiaofeng went on to say that companies trying to expand in this field may also face regulatory resistance. "Under the stricter anti-monopoly regulations in the United States, it will definitely be more difficult for Twitter or future X to do this in the United States."
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