Twitter shareholders will vote on Tuesday to approve or reject Elon Musk’s $44 billion takeover offer, and Twitter hacker Peter “Mudge” Zatko will testify before the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee.
Between the lines; The two events aren’t officially connected, but there’s a line with Moose hoping Zatko will be the get-out-of-deal card.
Voice: Twitter needs a simple majority of shareholders to positively support the merger.
- Approval is at $54.20 per share, a 30% premium to where the shares are currently trading and a 38% premium to where they were before the deal was announced.
- One wrinkle, however, is that Musk is Twitter’s largest outside owner, with a 9.6% stake, and will certainly keep his stake. It will be interesting to see if Musk can motivate other big shareholders, such as Saudi billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud (3.9%) or former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey (2.4%).
The witness: Zatco takes the seat at 10 p.m., most of the focus is likely to be on national security, and Zatco Twitter 2018. In 2011, he broke a settlement with the Federal Trade Commission and the Department of Justice (expect these agencies to pay up). close focus).
- Also, some senators may try to mask it by asking for information about bots, Zatko’s severance package, or other issues he might have trouble getting. Note that Musk is allowed to include Zatco’s allegations in the amended complaint, but is limited in terms of gathering new information.
- Last week’s court ruling: “Defendants shall be permitted only additional discovery relevant to the new allegations. That discovery may be conducted through targeted document discovery and minimal additional expert and fact witnesses.”
The main point is: What can Zatco say on Tuesday that will help (or hurt) Musk? who knows? That’s what appointment viewing is for.
