Today Twitter officially accepted Elon Musk‘s offer to buy the company for $54.20 per share – around $44 billion total – in an official step that brings the deal closer to closing.
An SEC filing reveals that Twitter’s board of directors unanimously approved the buyout offer, moving the deal closer to reality.
The approval comes after the company already acquiesced to Musk’s demand to see internal data that Twitter claims proves only around 5% of its users are bots. More recently, the company held an all-hands meeting in which Musk was allowed to communicate with his prospective employees.
The New York Post reports that some board members can look forward to large windfalls when the deal goes through, and it will perhaps serve as consolation as they will likely be left without jobs at Musk’s Twitter.
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey owns 18,042,428 shares of the company, reports the Post, which translates to about $978 million.
New CEO Parag Agrawal would pocket $42 million from the sale, and CFO Ned Segal would pocket $25.5 million. Both Agrawal and Segal’s payouts will come from a “change in control” clause in their contracts with the company.
Musk first began floating the idea of buying Twitter after Christian satire website Babylon Bee was censored by Twitter for mocking transgender Admiral Rachel Levine, who lived most of his life as a man before leaving his wife and declaring himself a woman, then quickly becoming the top health official in Pennsylvania followed by a military gig in the Biden administration.
He has since become the target of abuse from the left, with billionaire Bill Gates funding 11 organizations behind an open letter that begged advertisers to stop buying from Twitter should Musk become the new owner.
While Gates’ feud with Musk now extends to Twitter, it apparently began after the left wing billionaire bet against Tesla’s performance in the stock market.
When screen shots of their conversation were made public, Musk replied by comparing Gates’ physique to that of the pregnant man emoji created by Apple.
in case u need to lose a boner fast pic.twitter.com/fcHiaXKCJi
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 23, 2022
