Twitter shareholders on Tuesday voted in favor of Elon Musk’s deal to buy the microblogging service for $44 billion (roughly Rs. 3,49,800 crore), according to a report. The outcome of the shareholder vote, announced Tuesday, comes a month before the upcoming legal battle between the Tesla CEO and Twitter, which will begin on October 17 in Delaware Chancery Court. Musk agreed to buy Twitter earlier this year, but tried to back out of the deal in July.
On Tuesday, Reuters Reported Twitter shareholders approved Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s deal to buy the microblogging service. Musk had agreed to buy Twitter for $54.20 (roughly Rs. 4,300) per share, much higher than Tuesday’s price of $43.20 (roughly Rs. 3,400). The deadline to vote on the deal was Tuesday and the result cleared the way for the world’s richest man to take over the company.
However, the Tesla CEO has repeatedly said he does not want the takeover deal to go ahead and has sent several letters to Twitter to cancel the deal. The most recent of these communications was last week, when Musk’s lawyers indicated on Twitter that he had not been informed of the money paid to a former employee believed to be whistleblower Peter Zatko. Twitter has denied claims that the payment breached the terms of the contract.
Ahead of a trial set to begin Oct. 17 in Delaware Chancery Court, Musk has been granted court permission to join Zatko against the company. Twitter’s former security chief has alleged that the company misled the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) about the company’s security measures as part of a 2011 settlement. They also alleged that Twitter’s platform had serious security flaws and that one or more employees were acting on behalf of a foreign government.
In July, Musk tried to back out of a deal to buy Twitter, claiming he was misinformed about the number of spam or fake accounts at the company. The company sued Tesla’s CEO in July, calling his exit strategy a “model of hypocrisy.” Twitter previously claimed Musk was trying to “slow walk” the test, which begins next month.
