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Elon Musk channels Elvis with ‘Love Me Tender’ tweet, baffling investors amid Twitter row

  • The billionaire entrepreneur posted the cryptic tweet over weekend, possibly alluding to a direct tender offer to Twitter shareholders
  • Since the Tesla CEO offered US$43 billion to buy Twitter last week, the microblogging site implemented a ‘poison pill’ provision to make an acquisition harder

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Elon Musk’s Twitter account is seen on a smartphone in front of the Twitter logo in this photo illustration taken April 15, 2022. Photo: Reuters
Bloomberg
Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk kept investors in the dark this weekend, floating a cryptic tweet with the word “tender”, a likely wink-and-nod reference to a potential tender offer to Twitter Inc shareholders for control of the company.
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The world’s richest person caused a stir last week after he filed a US$43 billion proposal offering US$54.20 a share for the social network, which led Twitter to adopt a so-called poison-pill provision on Friday to make it harder for Musk or a group of investors to acquire more shares.

If Twitter directors ultimately reject him, the world could learn whether Musk was truly threatening a direct appeal to shareholders or had just added the 1956 Elvis Presley hit “Love Me Tender” to his playlist.

Musk may try to partner with investors including Oracle Corp, given that its chief executive officer, Larry Ellison, is on Tesla Inc’s board, along with a group of private equity firms including Thoma Bravo, Bloomberg Intelligence analysts Mandeep Singh and Ashley Kim wrote Friday. That partnership could raise the bid to US$50 billion, they wrote.

An acquisition is far from certain even without the poison-pill provision and defensive tactics from the company’s board. Musk said at an April 14 TED conference that he is “unsure” if he’ll actually be able to acquire the company, adding that he has a backup plan, without offering details.

Over the weekend, Musk said the economic interests of Twitter’s board are not aligned with shareholders. He was responding to a tweet about board members’ stock holdings, saying that with the departure of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey, the board “collectively owns almost no shares”.

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Dorsey, who remains on the company’s board until later this year, also took the unusual step of criticising its managers on the platform. “It’s consistently been the dysfunction of the company,” Dorsey wrote of Twitter’s board.

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