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Elon Musk is in the process of acquiring the social media giant Twitter. On October 26th, the Tesla boss walked into Twitter’s headquarters carrying a literal sink and saying, “let that sink in!.” Later on, he shared a tweet for his reasoning behind the effort, stating that he has already acquired it.
Musk’s persona is likely to make this one of the most heavily-discussed corporate acquisitions, as it’s been several months of back-and-forth that led to this moment. The following is a complete timeline of the process up until today.
How it Started
According to a filing with the SEC dated March 14th, 2022, Elon Musk had purchased a total of 73,486,936 shares of the social media company, which represented a 9.2% passive stake in Twitter. At the time, the stock was worth approximately $3 billion. When news broke out, Twitter shares soared by 25%.
On April 10th, after being appointed to the board of directors, Musk suggested that Twitter should consider a subscription fee and also add Dogecoin as a payment method.
In what seemed like the first sign of the looming controversy, on April 11th, the entrepreneur decided not to join the company’s board of directors. Twitter’s CEO said at the time that “this is for the best.”
On April 13th, Musk submitted a bid to the SEC to acquire Twitter. He also declared his intentions to take the company private. Musk offered $54.20 per share in cash. This valued the company at roughly $43 billion.
Interestingly enough, at the time, Justin Sun offered $60 per share and move the company offshore and turn it into a Web3 platform.
Later in April, Twitter released a press release, accepting Musk’s offer and calling it “the best path forward for Twitter’s shareholders.” In May, an updated filing revealed that Musk had received backing for his bid from 18 corporate investors, including Binance.
Stop… Wait a Minute
At around that time, the deal was put on hold. Musk explained that he was waiting for official calculations in support of Twitter’s claim that spam/fake accounts represent less than 5% of the total user base. In June, Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao reiterated their support for the acquisition.
In July, Elon Musk terminated the process, stating that Twitter hadn’t “complied with its contractual obligations” in association with their Merger agreement from April. A few days later, the social media giant filed a lawsuit against Musk for the same.
In September, however, Twitter shareholders approved the $44 billion bid, despite the lawsuit. Around that time, documents in legal discovery revealed a conversation between Musk and Jack Dorsey (Twitter founder and former CEO) regarding decentralizing the platform.
At the beginning of October, reports suggested that Musk had renewed his intentions to buy Twitter for the originally agreed price. This was later confirmed by sources interviewed by Bloomberg.
This brings us to today – Elon Musk shared a video where he carried a literal sink in Twitter’s headquarters, whimsically capturing it “Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!”