By Matt O'Brien
Twitter said Friday that its board of directors has unanimously adopted a “poison pill” defense in response to Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s proposal to buy the company and take it private.
Twitter said the move, formally called a “limited duration shareholder rights plan," aims to enable its investors to “realize the full value of their investment” by reducing the likelihood that any one person can gain control of the company without either paying shareholders a premium or giving the board more time. Poison pills are often used to defend against hostile takeovers.
Twitter’s plan would take effect if Musk’s roughly 9% stake grows to 15% or more. Even then, Musk could still take over the company with a proxy fight by voting out the current directors. Twitter said the plan doesn’t prevent the board from engaging with parties or accepting an acquisition proposal if it’s in the company’s “best interests.”
Twitter had revealed in a securities filing Thursday that Musk offered to buy the company outright for more than $43 billion, saying the social media platform “needs to be transformed as a private company” in order to build trust with its users.
“I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said in the filing. “I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form.”
Later on Thursday, during an onstage interview at the TED 2022 conference, he went even broader: “Having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization.”
WeWork said its chief executive and chief financial officer both plan to step down.
Shares of e-commerce giant Alibaba fell as China braces for a new wave of Covid.
Dish Network is in talks to sell wireless phone plans through Amazon, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Best Buy topped profit estimates in its latest quarter but also said consumers are spending more cautiously.
Nvidia topped earnings expectations, citing surging demand amid heightened interest in artificial intelligence.
Lawmakers in several states are embracing legislation to let children work in more hazardous occupations, longer hours on school nights and in expanded roles including serving alcohol in bars and restaurants as young as 14.
Target once distinguished itself as being boldly supportive of the LGBTQ+ community. Now that status is tarnished after it removed some LGBTQ+-themed products and relocated Pride Month displays to the back of stores in certain Southern locations in response to online complaints and in-store confrontations that it says threatened employees’ well-being.
With one of three major rating agencies warning that America’s AAA credit is at risk, the stakes are growing in the standoff in Washington over raising the nation's debt limit.
The average long-term U.S. mortgage rate rose this week to its highest level since mid March, driving up borrowing costs for prospective homebuyers facing a housing market that’s constrained by a dearth of homes for sale.
On this edition of Stretching Your Dollar, Corey William Schneider talks about how he made exploring the city a full-time job by founding the New York Adventure Club.
