Elon Musk launches a political and economic takeover bid on Twitter

Elon Musk, in March 2020 during a conference. BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI / AFP $54.20. This is the very serious amount at which Elon Musk offered to buy back shares of Twitter… But it is also a nod to cannabis, nicknamed “4/20” in American slang, in reference to the habit of smoking joints at 4:20 p.m. As often with the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, entrepreneurial flamboyance rubs shoulders with schoolboy provocation, with a consummate art of the opposite. The surprise takeover bid, launched on Thursday April 14 by the world’s richest man, plunged the business and media worlds – and Twitter – into a moment of surreal excitement. The hostile capitalistic maneuver gives rise to all the more conjecture in that it includes, in addition to its economic aspect, an important political dimension. Twitter “will not prosper or fulfill its societal mission [de liberté d’expression] in its current form,” Musk explained in a letter to the board. Before launching, with his usual aplomb: “Twitter has enormous potential. I will make it happen. The price offered by Elon Musk in his takeover bid values ​​the company in which he already owns 9% of the capital at 46 billion dollars (42.3 billion euros). The buyer is therefore ready to pay a “premium”, that is to say a bonus of 21% compared to the opening price of the security on Thursday, and 54% compared to that of January 28, the date at which he discreetly began to invest in Twitter, until becoming its first shareholder. This low-key raid was revealed on April 4 in documents from the American stock market policeman. Taken by surprise, the leaders of Twitter then proposed to the new shareholder to enter the board of directors, before the person concerned refused, on April 11, in a new twist. It was in fact probably a tactic to have a freer legal hands. “I don’t play the classic game of back and forth”, preferring to “go straight to the point”, Elon Musk explains today to the board of directors, in his letter announcing his unfriendly takeover. In the process, the social network announced that it would “examine carefully” the offer. Read also: Elon Musk becomes the first shareholder of Twitter A social network still in deficit Twitter is, much more than other social networks, an attainable target, because it is in a much more precarious economic situation than Facebook (2.9 billion users), YouTube (Alphabet-Google group, 2 billion users) or TikTok (1 billion users). Its revenue was $5 billion in 2021, representing an online advertising market share of around 1%, according to Insider Intelligence. Despite nearly 220 million daily active users, the company has never found real financial stability, and is still not profitable. Its growth has slowed in recent months, and its business model, based almost exclusively on advertising, has been affected by the pandemic crisis. In 2021, despite a 37% increase in turnover, the company still lost $221 million. You have 74.68% of this article left to read. The following is for subscribers only.