The IT Nerd

This keeps getting better and better. Elon Musk is apparently come up with a new plan involving partners which could be announced within days according to a NYPost report:

One possibility, the sources said: teaming with private-equity firm Silver Lake Partners, which was planning to co-invest with him in 2018 when he was considering taking Tesla private.

Silver Lake’s Co-CEO Egon Durban is a Twitter board member and led Musk’s deal team during the 2018 failed effort to take Tesla private, sources said. Silver Lake declined to comment.

Whether Musk would present Twitter with an entirely new offer — perhaps raising his current bid — or whether new partners would simply go in on a purchase with him isn’t clear. A Musk spokesperson declined to comment.

And about that “poison pill” strategy that Twitter has adopted. Well, he’s got a plan for that too:

For its part, Twitter on Friday adopted a so-called poison pill — a corporate move that prevents Musk from acquiring more than 15% of the company.

But that pill may not stop other entities or people from acquiring their own shares of up to 15% of the company. Those owners could partner with Musk to force a sale, make changes in the executive ranks or push for other overhauls of the company.

So clearly this isn’t a passing thing with Musk. He’s clearly in it to win. The question is, can he actually pull it off?

It seems that interest in Twitter is growing. 24 hours after coming up with a “poison pill” strategy to thwart Elon Musk’s attempt to buy the company, a second suitor has emerged with the intention to buy Twitter:

Thoma Bravo, a private equity firm that had more than $103 billion in assets under management as of the end of December, has informed Twitter that it is exploring the possibility of putting together a bid, the sources said. It is not clear how much Thoma Bravo would be prepared to offer and there is no certainty that such a rival bid will materialize, the sources cautioned, asking not to be identified because the matter is confidential.

There’s nothing in the “poison pill” strategy to stop Twitter from taking a look at this offer. It will be interesting to see how Twitter reacts to this, and if this starts a bidding war to land Twitter. Stay tuned for more on this as this is getting interesting.