Timeline: Looking Back At What All Happened In Elon Musk-Twitter¡¯s $44 Billion Deal

From becoming Twitter's largest shareholder, criticising the social media platform over issues like spam accounts, proposing to buy Twitter, then threatening to back out of the deal, taking a U-turn and reviving the deal ahead of the October 28th deadline set by the court, and finally closing the deal, the Twitter and Musk saga has finally ended.

As Musk has completed the takeover of Twitter just before the court's deadline of today (Oct 28th), let's take a look back at what all happened this year surrounding this $44 billion deal.

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Jan. 31: Musk starts building his stake

Elon Musk started quietly buying Twitter shares on January 31st, 2022. By March 14th, Musk had accumulated a stake of over 5%.

March 24: Musk starts criticizing Twitter, on Twitter

With Musk¡¯s stake still a secret, he began tweeting criticisms of the company in late March,on issues such as spam accounts.

April 4: Musk¡¯s stake becomes public, and he¡¯s invited to join Twitter¡¯s board.

Elon Musk¡¯s filing with the SEC listed him as a passive investor, and yet, shortly after it became public, he started tweeting out business propositions for Twitter. According to the filing, Elon Musk purchased a total of 9.2 percent of Twitter, making him the company's largest shareholder. Twitter shares witnessed their biggest ever spike since their IPO.

By the end of the day, Twitter invited Musk to join the board. Musk signalled that he would sign an agreement stipulating that he could not own more than 14.9% of the company¡¯s stock.

April 5: Musk becomes an active investor in Twitter

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Several of Twitter¡¯s board members tweeted to congratulate Musk on his decision to join their ranks. Agrawal tweeted that the company and Musk had been chatting for weeks.

Later that day, Musk refiled the disclosure of his stake to classify himself as an active investor, making the change only after indicating that he would accept a seat on Twitter¡¯s board.

April 9: Musk rejects the board seat.

The day Musk was set to officially join Twitter¡¯s board, he informed the company that he would be rejecting its offer. During that time, while the public still thought Musk was set to join Twitter¡¯s board, Musk tweeted several veiled criticisms and suggestions for the company. Musk asked his followers, "Is Twitter dying?"

April 10: Twitter makes the news public.

Twitter CEO Agrawal finally sends out a note to employees, and later tweets it publicly. The report mentioned that neither Agrawal nor Musk gave a reason for the reversal.

April 11: Another speculation abounds

Elon Musk files an amended disclosure with the SEC. He can now purchase as many shares as he wants. Without a board seat, he no longer has to act in the best interest of Twitter shareholders.

April 14: Musk offers to buy Twitter completely.

In an SEC filing and an accompanying tweet, Musk said he would buy out stockholders in a cash deal valued at $43 billion and take Twitter private. The offer is $54.20 a share, a 54% premium over the price when he started building his stake in January.

Also Read: World's Richest Person Elon Musk Meets His Indian Twitter Friend

April 15: Twitter adopts ¡®poison pill¡¯

To ward off Musk, Twitter launched a so-called poison pill, which is a rights plan that allows shareholders to purchase shares at a discount if any shareholder exceeds 15% ownership. This would effectively dilute the billionaire¡¯s stake. The company said in a statement that the intention of the plan is to ensure that anyone taking control through open-market accumulation pays all shareholders an appropriate premium.

April 16: ¡®Twitter¡¯s board owns almost no shares¡¯

In a flurry of tweets about the potential deal, Musk said, ¡°With Jack departing, the Twitter board collectively owns almost no shares,¡± so its economic interests are not aligned with shareholders. Former CEO Jack Dorsey replied, ¡°It¡¯s consistently been the dysfunction of the company.¡± Dorsey is scheduled to leave the board once his term expires at the next shareholder meeting on May 25.

April 21: Musk lines up $46.5 billion in funding

Musk explores a tender offer for Twitter, saying he¡¯s secured $46.5 in funding. A filing with the SEC shows that he has $25.5 billion in debt financing from Morgan Stanley and other financial institutions, including margin loans backed by his equity stake in Tesla and $21 billion in equity financing from himself.

April 24: The board holds discussions with Musk

Twitter¡¯s board began to take Musk¡¯s offer more seriously once he presented details of his financing in the meeting.

April 25: Twitter agrees to get sold

Twitter agreed to sell to Musk for his original offer of $54.20 a share. The transaction, valued at about $44 billion, will take the company private.

April 29: Musk sells Tesla stock

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In new regulatory filings, Musk disclosed an additional $4.5 billion worth of Tesla stock sales in new regulatory filings, bringing the total he¡¯s disposed of in the process of buying Twitter to more than $8.5 billion. Tesla¡¯s CEO offloaded more than 5 million shares on April 28, according to the new filings, and tweeted that no further Tesla share sales were planned.

May 4: Musk raises more funds for the deal.

Musk raised an additional $7.1 billion of new financing commitments to fund the deal. Backers include Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison, who put up $1 billion; Sequoia Capital for $800 million; Vy Capital for $700 million; Binance for $500 million, and more than a dozen others, according to company filings, as per the Bloomberg report. Saudi Arabia¡¯s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal agrees to roll over his nearly 35 million Twitter shares, worth about $1.9 billion at $54.20 per share.

May 6: Plans for Twitter revealed

It was reported that Musk is planning to quintuple Twitter¡¯s revenue to $26.4 billion by 2028, from $5 billion last year, and sees a similar growth in users, to 931 million, from 217 million. He also reportedly plans to cut the company¡¯s reliance on advertising to less than 50% of revenue, further develop a subscription product, and prepare for fluctuating headcount.

May 10: Musk says he will lift Donald Trump's ban

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Elon Musk confirms that he would reverse Twitter¡¯s ban on former US president Donald Trump once he becomes owner.

May 12: Hiring freeze and resignations at Twitter

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announces a hiring freeze and other cost-cutting efforts amid the state of uncertainty over the Musk deal. Two of Twitter¡¯s top leaders also depart.

The company said it is also pulling back on costs such as travel, consulting and marketing, according to the memo.

May 13: Musk Says Twitter deal on hold

¡°Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,¡± Musk said in a tweet, which sent Twitter stock plummeting.

A few hours later, he sent another tweet saying he was "still committed" to the acquisition.

May 16: Musk and Agrawal¡¯s spam debate on Twitter

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In a Twitter thread, Twitter CEO Agrawal said that measuring spam accounts was complicated because some are actually real humans even if they look like spam, and vice versa. Twitter also allows bots on the service, so simply setting up an automated account is not against the rules.

Musk was not impressed with Agrawal¡¯s response. He suggested calling users to verify their accounts, then he simply replied to Agrawal with a poop emoji.

May 17: Musk threatens to pull out of the deal

Elon Musk declared he won¡¯t proceed with his takeover plan unless the social media giant can prove bots make up fewer than 5% of its users.

The proposed takeover includes a $1 billion breakup fee, which Musk will have to pay if the deal falls apart due to financing issues.

June 16: Musk interacts with Twitter employees

Elon Musk addresses Twitter employees for the first time. The Tesla CEO appeared via video call 10 minutes late to what turned out to be a freewheeling question and answer session moderated by a Twitter executive. He talked about various topics, including the intent to make twitter reach 1 billion daily active users, discussion of aliens, mentioning that he doesnt care about being CEO, expressing his love for twitter, possible layoffs, etc.

July 8: Musk backs out of deal

Elon Musk backs out of the $44 billion deal on July 8, saying in a regulatory filing that the company has made ¡°misleading representations¡± over the number of so-called spam bots on the service.

July 12: Twitter sues Musk

Twitter files suit in Delaware Chancery Court to compel Musk to complete the deal. Twitter said it provided Tesla CEO Musk with ¡°the full ¡®firehose¡¯ data set that he has been mining for weeks,¡± and other reports.

Twitter Board is committed to closing the transaction on the price and terms agreed upon with Musk.

August 8: Musk challenges Twitter CEO

Amid the $44 billion Twitter deal deadlock, Tesla CEO Elon Musk challenged Twitter Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Parag Agrawal, to a public debate about the percentage of bots on the social media platform.

August 10: Musk again sells Tesla shares

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold $6.9 billion worth of his shares in the electric vehicle maker, saying that the funds could be used to finance a potential Twitter deal if he loses a legal battle with the social media platform. His transactions occurred between August 5th and 9th, the SEC filings revealed.

August 12: Elon Musk accuses twitter of hiding key witnesses

Tesla CEO Elon Musk is accusing Twitter of hiding key witnesses in their legal battle over whether he must consummate a $44 billion buyout of the company.

Elon Musk¡¯s lawyers have asked the judge in the case to force Twitter to identify the workers so the defence can get their records and question them.

September 29: Texts revealed

A treasure trove of private text messages released as part of the lawsuit slated to go to trial in Delaware Chancery Court on Oct. 17 showed how the deal came together, as per Bloomberg report.

In about 40 pages of published exchanges, Jack Dorsey leans on Musk as activist investors push for change.

Oracle Corp.¡¯s Larry Ellison reportedly offered something of a blank check when Musk asked if he had any interest in participating. Ellison said, ¡°Since you think I should come in for at least $2B ... I¡¯m in for $2B.¡±

October 4: Musk takes a U-turn, revives $44 billion takeover bid

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Elon Musk revives his bid for Twitter at the original offer price of $54.20 a share, potentially avoiding a courtroom fight.

October 18: Twitter Freezes Stock Accounts of Employees

In what is seen as a big sign towards the much awaited completion of Elon Musk-Twitter¡®s $44 billion deal, Twitter this week froze the equity (stock) accounts for its employees. This comes barely 10 days ahead of the October 28th deadline for Elon Musk to close the deal.

Twitter updated its employee FAQ page this week to alert staff they won't be able to access or trade shares from the Equity Award Center.

The FAQ page said the change was made "in anticipation of the closing of the pending acquisition of Twitter by an entity controlled by Elon Musk", according to the report, citing two people familiar with the change. This step is likely to prevent employees holding Twitter stocks from trading the shares ahead of the expected takeover.

October 19: Elon Musk says that he is excited about his pending acquisition of Twitter, although he and other investors were overpaying for the social media company. He was answering a question during a call after Tesla¡¯s quarterly report was released.

October 27: Elon Musk visits Twitter headquarter with sink in hand & changes twitter bio

Yesterday, ahead of closing the $44 billion deal, Elon Musk visited the Twitter headquarters, carrying a sink in hand, and tweeting "Let that sink in".

Entering Twitter HQ ¨C let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7

¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022

Musk, who has over 110 million followers, also changed his twitter bio to 'Chief Twit'.

October 28: Confirming his takeover of Twitter, Musk tweets about what motivated him to buy Twitter.

Dear Twitter Advertisers pic.twitter.com/GMwHmInPAS

¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 27, 2022

He also tweeted that the 'bird (referring to Twitter's logo) is freed'

the bird is freed

¡ª Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022

Also Read: Twitter Spent $33 Million On Elon Musk's Takeover Deal

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