Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter: Here’s what Twitter CEO has to say

Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal told the employees that the board was still evaluating Elon Musk’s offer to buy the company for $43 billion and take it private. In a 25-minute Q&A session with the employees on Thursday, Agarwal said that the board was not ‘held hostage’ by the news of Musk’s plans to buy the company and that it would make a decision ‘in the best interest of our shareholders’.

According to a Reuters report, one employee asked how the company arrived at the decision to offer Musk a board seat. “Are we just going to start inviting any and all billionaires to the board?” the employee asked. Agrawal responded by saying that the board of the company was still evaluating Musk’s offer. He also said that people who were critical of the platform were important to make it better. “I have a strong point of view that people who are critical of our service, their voice is something that we must emphasise so that we can learn and get better,” Agarwal added.

Twitter’s board not interested in Musk’s offer

Separately, reports suggest that Twitter’s board wasn’t interested in Musk’s buyout offer and that it was considering using a ‘poison pill’ strategy to thwart future attempts by the billionaire for acquiring a large stake in the company.

For the unversed, the ‘poison pill’ strategy involves flooding the market with shares once an investor acquires stock above a particular limit. This makes it easy for other investors to buy it. It also makes it difficult for a single investor to buy up owing to the cost. This in turn helps a company to prevent a hostile takeover. However, one disadvantage of this strategy is that the stock value becomes diluted, which makes the company look financially unattractive. Sometimes, shareholders have to purchase new shares just to keep up and maintain their stake in the company.

What is Elon Musk saying

Prior to the meeting, Musk criticised Twitter’s board saying, “It would be utterly indefensible not to put this offer to a shareholder vote. They own the company, not the board of directors.” He was answering a question about the possible impact of the board’s decision, if it chose to reject the offers.

Meanwhile, Musk is also asking his followers if “taking Twitter private at $54.20 should be up to shareholders, not the board’. He has also shared a document by Goldman Sachs that reviews Twitter prior to an acquisition.

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