The listing of Twitter shares was suspended on Tuesday on the New York Stock Exchange "pending information" after a Bloomberg article which revealed this new offer from the boss of Tesla.

According to the economic news agency, Elon Musk sent a letter to Twitter on Monday, offering to acquire the platform for $54.20 a share, the price he originally offered to the company. spring and that the board of directors had finally accepted.

The two parties had signed a contract at the end of April, but Elon Musk unilaterally reneged on this agreement in July.

The group with the blue bird then launched a lawsuit to force him to honor his commitment, and everything indicated that he was well positioned to win.

"It's a clear sign that Musk recognizes that his chances of winning against the board in a Delaware court are very slim and that the $44 billion buyout was going to have to happen one way or another." , reacted the analyst Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities.

Elon Musk had bombarded Twitter with criticism before and after the takeover deal was signed, accusing the platform of censoring users and failing to sufficiently crack down on spam and fake accounts.

He justified his backtracking by saying that the proportion of automated accounts on the platform was well above the 5% figure put forward by the San Francisco company.

Quick trial

Faced with Twitter's complaint, the president of the Delaware specialized court to deal with the case granted the company a quick trial, while Elon Musk wanted to wait until next year and was asking for astronomical amounts of data.

The trial was supposed to be held from October 17 to 21, but it will not take place if Twitter accepts this new offer.

"Twitter is going to want a bulletproof contract this time around that basically says 'give us the money and we can do it'. They're going to want Musk to put up a good chunk of the total sum," Adam Badawi commented. professor of business law at the University of Berkeley.

Difficult to know at this stage why the multi-billionaire has changed his mind.

Neither Twitter nor Elon Musk's lawyers responded to requests from AFP immediately.

“According to some speculation, Musk could have had to pay substantial interest if he had appealed, and therefore had to pay much more than the $54.20 per share,” notes Mr. Badawi.

"Storm of Worries"

The Musk clan seemed to have gained a point when Peiter Zatko, the ex-Twitter security chief who was fired in January, accused the group of major security breaches in late August, in a report submitted to US authorities.

But during preliminary hearings with the judge, the multi-billionaire's lawyers seemed to struggle to substantiate the charges on the automated accounts.

A Twitter lawyer cited two reports by data analytics firms hired by the businessman, Cyabra and CounterAction, which put the rate of fake accounts at 11% and 5.3%, respectively. .

"None of these reports even remotely support what Mr. Musk said to Twitter and to the world in his July 8 letter," attorney Brad Wilson told a hearing.

If the transaction goes through, the risk that regulators will oppose it is low, according to Dan Ives.

But the once again topical idea that the boss of Tesla and SpaceX will become the owner of Twitter "will cause a storm of concerns and questions from users and politicians," added the analyst.

The April agreement had indeed been greeted with a lot of emotions, from the anxieties of the left to the joy of the right at the idea that Elon Musk would relax the rules and the moderation of content.

"The platform will become an engine of radicalization if it delivers even a fraction of what it promised," Angelo Carusone, president of the NGO Media Matters for America, said in a statement Tuesday.

© 2022 AFP