Twitter

The likely unraveling of the acquisition was just the latest twist in a saga between the world’s richest man and one of the most influential social media platforms, and it may portend a titanic legal battle ahead.

Shares of Twitter dipped in late trading Thursday, reversing earlier gains, on fresh speculation that its acquisition by Elon Musk is at risk. Musk inked a deal to buy the social media platform in late April for $54.20 a share, or $44 billion, and has indicated a number times he wants to back out, citing lack of clarity around the number of spam accounts.

Twitter’s board of directors on Tuesday unanimously recommended shareholders approve Elon Musk’s bid to buy the social media company. The board recommended stockholders approve Musk’s $44 billion offer, stating they determined it to be fair and in the best interests of Twitter and its stockholders, according to a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

The billionaire is also likely to clarify some of his remarks on remote work and strategy at a virtual meeting Thursday with the social media platform’s employees.

After a weeks-long impasse, Twitter’s board plans to comply with Elon Musk’s demands for internal data by offering access to its full “firehose,” the massive stream of data comprising more than 500 million tweets posted each day, according to a person familiar with the company’s thinking, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the state of negotiations.

Lawyers for the Tesla and SpaceX CEO made the threat in a letter to Twitter dated Monday that the company disclosed in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The lawyers wrote that Musk has repeatedly asked for the information about Twitter’s spam bot and fake accounts since May 9, about a month after his offer to buy the company, so he could evaluate how many of the company’s 229 million accounts are fake.

Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter for $44 billion has cleared a regulatory step with the Federal Trade Commission, Twitter said Friday. The waiting period under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Improvements Act for the bid expired late Thursday night. The HSR Act requires parties to report large mergers and acquisitions to the FTC and the Department of Justice’s antitrust division for review. (AP photo/Richard Drew)

The Securities and Exchange Commission revealed on Friday that it had begun looking into Elon Musk’s purchases of Twitter stock in early April and whether he properly disclosed his stake and his intentions for the social media company.

The Federal Trade Commission has fined Twitter $150 million over allegations that it misled users by asking for their phone numbers and email addresses for security purposes, but then drew on the information for ad targeting.

Twitter will begin placing warning notices in front of some misleading content regarding the conflict in Ukraine and limit the spread of claims debunked by humanitarian groups or other credible sources, the social media company said on Thursday. The step-up against misinformation around Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which Moscow calls a “special military operation,” is part of a new policy that outlines how Twitter will approach misinformation during crises.

Musk’s increasingly skeptical — and erratic — comments about the takeover have kept investors, bankers and Twitter itself guessing about his motives. Some analysts figure that the 50-year-old is trying to drive down the acquisition price or walk away from the deal altogether.

Elon Musk said he is putting his bid to acquire Twitter on hold, weeks after agreeing to take the company private in a $44 billion deal. “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,” Musk tweeted on Friday. The news sent Twitter shares down more than 20% in premarket trading.

An internal memo shared with employees said the platform’s general manager and general manager for revenue would be departing.

Free Press, Common Cause and a number of other progressive groups and civil rights advocates have called on the biggest social media companies to combat disinformation in the run-up to the midterm elections, the first national election since the Jan. 6 Capitol insurrection, saying if they don’t, they are “the dominant threat” to the democratic process. That came in the form of letters to the CEOs of Meta, Twitter, YouTube, Snapchat, Instagram, TikTok, and Alphabet from more than 100 groups.

Musk, speaking virtually at a Future of the Car summit hosted by the Financial Times, said Twitter’s Trump ban was a “morally bad decision” and “foolish in the extreme.” He said permanent bans of Twitter accounts should be rare and reserved for accounts that are scams or automated bots.

A filing lists a number of investment firms and other backers who will contribute $7 billion to the deal. In numerous conversations over the last several days, Musk began making promises about what he could do with Twitter, telling potential investors that he could double the number of users on the platform to more than half a billion by 2025, four people briefed on the conversations said. Not only that, he said, he could more than double Twitter’s revenue by that date and bring tens of millions of paying subscribers to the service, two of the people said.

Many marketers were already lukewarm on the service. Now, some may move their money elsewhere if the content moderation policies are relaxed.

NBCUniversal’s E! News will be launching a new live-streamed show on Twitter that will cover programming in all forms of TV. At its NewFront presentation Wednesday, Twitter said the new E! show would be called While You Were Streaming. It will be hosted by Danielle Roby and look at the tweet-worthy moments in series like Stranger Things, Obi-Wan Kenobi and The Real Housewives.

Two of the FCC’s four current members have said they won’t interfere with Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s planned $44 billion purchase of Twitter.  “The FCC cannot, and should not, block this sale,” Nathan Simington, a Republican, said this week. “We should instead applaud Mr. Musk for doing something about a serious problem that government has so far failed to address,” Simington added, obviously referring to reports that Musk plans to revise Twitter’s content-moderation policies.

It’s highly unusual to move from a “poison pill” to a $44 billion deal in under two weeks. But Twitter’s board ran out of options.

The big question now is how far Musk, who describes himself as a “free-speech absolutist,” wants to ratchet back these systems — and whether users and advertisers will stick around if he does.

The outspoken Tesla CEO, the world’s wealthiest person, has said he wants to buy Twitter because he thinks it’s not living up to its potential as a platform for “free speech.” He says it needs to be transformed as a private company in order to build trust with users and do better at serving what he calls the “societal imperative” of free speech. Twitter said the transaction was unanimously approved by its board of directors.

Joe Ferullo: “The passionate romance between Twitter and journalism suddenly seems to be on the rocks — and that’s good news for people who care about real news, delivered straight.”

The New York Times, citing people with knowledge of the situation who it did not identify, said the two sides were discussing details including a timeline and fees if an agreement was signed and then fell apart. The people said the situation was fluid and fast-moving.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said Thursday in documents filed with U.S. securities regulators that the money would come from Morgan Stanley and other banks, some of it secured by his huge stake in the electric car maker. Twitter has yet to formally respond to Musk’s offer, but the company has enacted an anti-takeover measure known as a poison pill that could make a takeover attempt prohibitively expensive.

Apollo Global Management Inc. is considering participating in a bid for Twitter Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, after Elon Musk’s $43 billion bid put the social-media company in play. Apollo, one of the world’s largest buyout firms, has held discussions about backing a possible deal for Twitter and could provide Musk or another bidder like private-equity firm Thoma Bravo LP with equity or debt to support an offer, the people said.

The move would allow existing Twitter shareholders to buy additional shares at a discount, thereby diluting Elon Musk’s stake in the company and making it harder for the Tesla CEO to corral a majority of shareholder votes in favor of the acquisition. Twitter’s plan would take effect if Musk’s roughly 9% stake grows to 15% or more.

Advertisers have long been nervous about interacting on the site, new management could shake it up even more.

Twitter Inc. said in a regulatory filing on Thursday that Musk, who currently owns slightly more than 9% of its stock and is the company’s biggest shareholder, provided a letter to the company on Wednesday that contained a proposal to buy the remaining shares of Twitter that he doesn’t already own. Musk offered $54.20 per share of Twitter’s stock. He called that price his best and final offer, although the billionaire provided no details on financing.

Musk, Twitter’s biggest shareholder, is free to buy more stock in the company and could use the platform against itself. Some employees are dismayed.

Computer companies are standing up for Twitter in federal court, telling the federal appeals court for the Ninth Circuit that it should reject and rethink a panel decision ruling against Twitter’s challenge to an investigation by Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted the news, which followed a weekend of Musk tweets suggesting possible changes to Twitter, including making the site ad-free. Nearly 90% of Twitter’s 2021 revenue came from ads. “Elon’s appointment to the board was to become officially effective on 4/9, but Elon shared that same morning that he would not be joining the board,” Agrawal wrote in a reposted note originally sent to Tesla employees. “I believe this is for the best.”

The billionaire has criticized Twitter publicly about its commitment to free speech. He’s also run into trouble on the platform as the CEO of Tesla after financial regulators found he had posted inaccurate information about the company. He now owns 9% of the company and is barred from owning more than 14.9% of Twitter’s outstanding stock while he sits on the board, Twitter Inc. said in a Tuesday regulatory filing.