Twitter shares spiked 5% in premarket trading Monday on reports that the company's board was ready to approve Elon Musk's takeover bid.
Musk met privately with several large Twitter shareholders in recent days, with some expressing their support for his bid, according to a person briefed on the discussions who was not authorized to speak about them.
The company's board of directors met with Musk on Sunday, and negotiations extended into early hours of Monday, the New York Times reported, citing two people speaking on the condition of anonymity. The two sides were discussing details including a timeline to close any potential deal and any fees that would be paid if an agreement were signed and then fell apart, according to the report.
Twitter had seemed poised to reject the Tesla CEO's unsolicited offer, which would value the company at $54.20 per share. But Musk outlined his plan to secure $46.5 billion to buy the social media company last week, saying he would get bank loans and use his own equity to fund the deal. His plan seemed to lend more credibility to his offer.
Musk is the world's richest person, worth about $259 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire's Index, but much of his wealth is tied up in stock. The entrepreneur serves as CEO of electric car company Tesla, aerospace company SpaceX, and co-founded payment service PayPal.
Musk took a stake of more than 9% in Twitter earlier this year, leading to two wild weeks of back-and-forth with the company. Twitter announced he would join the board, then days later said he would no longer come on board.
Shortly after that, Musk launched his bid for the company. He has said he wants to promote free speech on Twitter and plans to take the company private.
Twitter adopted a so-called "poison pill" plan to throw a roadblock in front of Musk's offer, essentially designed to make it more expensive and complicated for Musk to acquire the whole company.
Musk, who has more than 80 million Twitter followers, has garnered a large and devoted online following who praise his brash online profile for both the sharing of innovative ideas and the marijuana-related memes.
WASHINGTON POST