Twitter floats ‘poison pill’ in an attempt to fend off Elon Musk's takeover

Twitter is adopting “a limited duration shareholder rights plan” as a counter move against Tesla CEO and professional Twitter shitposter, Elon Musk, and his bid to take the social media platform private at the price of $54.20 a share.

Poison pill — The move, referred to as a “poison pill” by those more familiar with corporate terminology than I, would allow Twitter shareholders to purchase more shares of the company in the hopes of diluting Musk’s current nine percent stake. The plan would go into effect for a duration of one year.

The board provided the following reasoning in their press release announcing the counter move:

The Rights Plan will reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders.

Free speech, I guess — Musk’s — admittedly very distracting — “fight” with Twitter started with his recent investment, led to him being an offered a seat on the company’s board, and truly kicked off when he abruptly refused the board seat and offered to purchase the company outright.

Musk has claimed his proposed purchase is about “unlocking Twitter’s potential” and protecting free speech, backing it up with some fairly uninformed answers about how Twitter and free speech work at a TED interview on Thursday. When Musk declined a seat on Twitter’s board, current CEO Parag Agrawal warned staff that there would be “distractions ahead.”

It seems like they are most certainly here.