Elon Musk’s $44bn Twitter takeover bid hit with lawsuit
Elon Musk and Twitter have been sued by a US pension fund seeking to block the Tesla CEO’s $44bn (£35.6bn) takeover of the platform.
The Orlando Police Pension Fund yesterday filed a complaint at the Delaware Chancery Court contending that Musk, who has a 9.2 per cent stake in Twitter, cannot complete a quick merger of the social media platform unless holders of two-thirds of remaining shares consent to the deal.
The suit, which also names Twitter’s chief executive Parag Agrawal and founder Jack Dorsey as defendants, alleges company directors breached their fiduciary duties by approving the deal. The filing did not outline how shareholders believe they will be harmed by the takeover.
The world’s richest man has secured billions of dollars worth of funding to finance his bid for Twitter with Musk this week revealing he raised around $7bn from crypto exchange Binance, Larry Ellison and the Qatar state investment fund.
The eccentric billionaire has previously said he intends to restore free speech to the platform and remove spam bots.
The founder of Tesla and SpaceX has revealed further details about his plans for the platform in recent days. Musk told investors he plans to quintuple revenue which will reach $26.4bn by 2028 – up from $5bn last year. He also intends to fire 1,000 Twitter staff after his takeover before taking on an additional 3,000 employees by 2025.
Read more: Binance chips in $500m of Elon Musk’s $44bn for Twitter takeover