Twitter’s stock has swung wildly this month following Elon Musk’s bid to buy the company.
Photo:
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg News
Twitter Inc. shares climbed after the social-media company accepted
Elon Musk’s
bid to take over the company.
Shares of the company rose 5.7% Monday to close at $51.70, their highest closing value in about five months. The stock rose above $52 at one point Monday before the deal was announced later in the trading day. Twitter’s stock has swung wildly this month as investors followed the twists and turns of Mr. Musk’s bid to buy the San Francisco-based company.
The $44 billion deal follows a dramatic courtship and marks a change of heart at Twitter, where many executives and board members initially opposed Mr. Musk’s takeover approach. The Wall Street Journal had reported that the two sides met Sunday to discuss the proposal from Mr. Musk, the chief executive of
Tesla Inc.
TSLA -0.70%
and one of Twitter’s most popular and vocal users. The parties worked through the night on a deal that values Twitter shares at $54.20 a share.
The talks progressed after Mr. Musk said he had lined up $46.5 billion to fund his bid for the company. Tesla shares declined 0.7% Monday to close at $998.02.
Mr. Musk had said from the start that his $54.20-a-share offer was his “best and final.” The last time Twitter’s shares traded above $54.20 was November 2021.
Since Mr. Musk disclosed a roughly 9% stake in the company in early April, Twitter shares have climbed 32%. That has pushed Twitter higher on a year-to-date basis, outpacing other technology companies and the broader market. The S&P 500 is down 9.9% for the year.
Twitter is expected to report first-quarter earnings Thursday. Analysts expect the company to post a boost in revenue, but a decline in net income compared with the year before, FactSet data show.
Mr. Musk has indicated that he wants to make substantial changes to Twitter, saying the company should shift toward a business model that relies more on subscriptions. He has also said Twitter should soften its stance on content moderation.
Mr. Musk’s bid for the platform has been popular among individual investors, who poured a net $747 million into the stock in April, according to Vanda Research data through Friday. That is nearly 10 times the average monthly purchase by the group in 2021.
Hardika Singh contributed to this article.
Write to Caitlin McCabe at [email protected]
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