X

Twitter Shareholders Vote to Approve $44 Billion Musk Deal

A tabulation of shareholder votes shows Twitter stock owners want to sell to billionaire Elon Musk, who is still trying to back out of buying the company.

Queenie Wong Former Senior Writer
Queenie Wong was a senior writer for CNET News, focusing on social media companies including Facebook's parent company Meta, Twitter and TikTok. Before joining CNET, she worked for The Mercury News in San Jose and the Statesman Journal in Salem, Oregon. A native of Southern California, she took her first journalism class in middle school.
Expertise I've been writing about social media since 2015 but have previously covered politics, crime and education. I also have a degree in studio art. Credentials
  • 2022 Eddie award for consumer analysis
Ian Sherr Contributor and Former Editor at Large / News
Ian Sherr (he/him/his) grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area, so he's always had a connection to the tech world. As an editor at large at CNET, he wrote about Apple, Microsoft, VR, video games and internet troubles. Aside from writing, he tinkers with tech at home, is a longtime fencer -- the kind with swords -- and began woodworking during the pandemic.
Queenie Wong
Ian Sherr
2 min read
Elon Musk's Twitter account on a mobile phone, in front of a Twitter logo

Billionaire Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share earlier this year.

James Martin/CNET

Twitter shareholders on Tuesday voted to approve a deal with billionaire Elon Musk, who signed an agreement in the spring to buy the social network for $44 billion. Musk is now trying to back out of the deal, but Twitter shareholders seem to have said they want it to go forward.

At a special meeting, about 60% of Twitter shareholders voted on the deal. About 59.2% of those Twitter shareholders voted to approve the agreement, according to a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. Under the agreement, Musk would pay $54.20 per share for Twitter. The publicly traded company would also become private. 

Shareholders had until Tuesday's meeting to register their votes. The meeting itself took place with little fanfare and without executives taking questions from attendees. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal didn't make any comments.

The shareholder approval is the latest development in the chaotic story around a potential sale of Twitter. Musk's flip-flop on purchasing the social network has created uncertainty about Twitter's future. 

The original offer to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share marked a 38% premium over the company's share price on April 1. Twitter's stock on Tuesday was trading up about 1% from the opening bell, at $41.84 per share.

Musk turbulence

When Musk unveiled his plan to buy Twitter, he painted himself as a savior of free speech who would unshackle the social network from its self-imposed rules on content moderation. But by early July, he'd had a change of heart and announced he was pulling out of the deal.

Musk and Twitter have been locked in a legal battle ever since. Twitter alleges in a lawsuit filed over the summer that the Tesla and SpaceX leader doesn't want to buy the social network anymore because his personal wealth has fallen. Musk, by contrast, has accused Twitter of misrepresenting or omitting information, including about the number of fake and spam accounts on its platform. 

In related news, Twitter's former head of security, Peiter "Mudge" Zatko, filed a whistleblower complaint this summer about privacy and security problems he allegedly uncovered while working at the company.

The 84-page complaint, filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Department of Justice and the Federal Trade Commission, outlines numerous security risks at Twitter. It also alleges that Twitter lied to Musk about the number of bots on the platform. Twitter has disputed Zatko's claims and says his complaint is inaccurate, inconsistent and lacks context.

Musk's lawyers are using the whistleblower complaint as part of the billionaire's case to end the deal. Zatko, who's denied that he filed the complaint to help Musk, testified before a Senate committee earlier Tuesday. 

Twitter and Musk are set to go head-to-head in a five-day trial in the Delaware Chancery Court starting Oct. 17.