May 17, 2022 - Technology

Twitter turns the tables on Musk, will “enforce” merger

Herb Scribner

Elon Musk stands. — Elon Musk. Photo: Jonathan Newton/The Washington Post via Getty Image

Twitter's board said Tuesday that it plans to "close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement" between Elon Musk and Twitter, The New York Times reports.

Driving the news: "The board and Mr. Musk agreed to a transaction at $54.20 per share," Twitter's board said in a statement to The New York Times. "We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement.”

This followed an earlier statement from Twitter that said it was “committed to completing the transaction on the agreed price and terms as promptly as practicable."

Flashback: Twitter’s board urged shareholders in a regulatory filing Tuesday to vote in favor of the deal.

The big picture: Musk said last week that the $44 billion deal with Twitter was "temporarily on hold" until CEO Parag Agrawal publicly proves that less than 5% of users are bots or spam accounts.

"My offer was based on Twitter's SEC filings being accurate," Musk said in a tweet. "Yesterday, Twitter's CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does."

Yes, but: Musk currently has a contractual obligation to buy Twitter at the agreed price, Axios' Felix Salmon writes.

Go deeper... The Musk-Twitter endgame

Elon Musk's Twitter clown car

A timeline of the Musk-Twitter deal so far

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Twitter turns the tables on Musk, will “enforce” merger

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