Twitter's Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's USD 44 Billion Takeover Deal

Twitter's Shareholders Approve Elon Musk's USD 44 Billion Takeover Deal

Twitter’s shareholders have overwhelmingly voted for Tesla CEO Elon Musk to take over the social media platform. "Approximately 98.6% of the votes cast at the special meeting approved the proposal to adopt the merger agreement," the social media giant said.

Shareholders Want Elon Musk to Take Over Twitter

Twitter Inc. announced on Tuesday that its stockholders have approved the previously announced USD 44 billion agreement in favor of Tesla CEO Elon Musk to take over the social media platform.

"Based on a preliminary tabulation of the stockholder vote," the announcement reads:

"Approximately 98.6% of the votes cast at the special meeting approved the proposal to adopt the merger agreement."

"The shareholder approval satisfies the final condition precedent to the closing of the merger under the merger agreement (other than those conditions that by their nature are to be satisfied at closing)," Twitter said, adding:

"Twitter stands ready and willing to complete the merger with affiliates of Mr. Musk immediately, and in any event, no later than September 15, 2022."

Musk offered to buy Twitter for about USD 44 billion in April. However, he subsequently accused the social media company of a "material breach" of their agreement in June. The Twitter deal is "temporarily on hold pending details supporting our calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users," Musk said at the time.

The Tesla CEO officially terminated his offer to buy Twitter in early July. The social media company filed a lawsuit a few days later in the Delaware Court of Chancery to compel Musk to complete the acquisition. Musk counter-sued Twitter.

At the end of August, Musk outlined new reasons to walk away from the deal with Twitter, citing a whistleblower report. The social media company has insisted that Musk’s termination of the buyout agreement "is invalid and without merit."

Meanwhile, the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has probed Twitter regarding its spam accounts. In early August, Musk challenged Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to a public debate about fake accounts and spam bots.

Musk recently sold 7,924,107 shares of Tesla. "In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock," the billionaire explained.