Elon Musk cited three ‘unresolved’ issues remaining after the Twitter board unanimously authorized his $44 billion buyout.
The board decision is the next step toward completing Musk’s $44 billion sale.
During a virtual conference with Twitter staff last week, Musk reiterated his willingness to move forward with the acquisition.
The reiteration comes amid Twitter shares remaining considerably below the selling price, indicating considerable uncertainty that it will happen.
Musk, however, highlighted the ratification of the deal by shareholders as one of numerous “unresolved concerns” relating to the Twitter deal in an interview with Bloomberg at the Qatar Economic Forum.
According to the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, the bot and fake accounts issue and debt finance are the other two reasons the deal is yet to conclude.
Twitter’s board of directors “unanimously recommends that you vote [for] the adoption of the merger agreement,” said a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) describing a letter to investors.
If the deal were to wind up right now, shareholders would profit $15.22 on each share they held.
Not about the title
In the same meeting, Musk said he did not care about being the company’s CEO.
Musk said that there are a lot of responsibilities that come with being CEO, and all he wants to do is make sure that the product evolves quickly and in a positive way.
He said, “I don’t really care what the title is. But people do need to listen to me.”
At his companies, SpaceX and Tesla, the billionaire has voiced a similar view on CEO designations.
According to official SEC filings the Insider cited, Musk dubbed himself “Techno King” and Chief Financial Officer Zach Kirkhorn “Master of Coin” in March 2021.
If Musk’s purchase of Twitter goes through, the billionaire has stated that he intends to focus on the app’s “software and product design.”
He told Twitter employees, “If I say, ‘Hey, we need to improve the product in the following way and add these features,’ then, like, I do expect that people will listen to me in this regard.”
WFH for ‘exceptional’ employees
At the Twitter all-hands meeting, Elon Musk told employees that ‘exceptional’ employees could sometimes work remotely.
According to an attendee’s recording provided with Insider, Musk said, “You want to aspire to do things in person.”
At the meeting, Twitter’s head of people and CMO, Leslie Berland, revealed that 1,500 “tweeps” (aka Twitter employees) are fully remote. The remaining, roughly 6,000, are mostly hybrids.
Musk believes that only high-ranking staff should be allowed to work remotely.
Musk said, “If somebody is exceptional at their job, then it’s possible for them to be effective, even working remotely.”
In answer to a follow-up question, Musk said that the bias “obviously needs to be heavily toward working in person.”
In 2020, Twitter announced a permanent work-from-home option, and the staff was concerned about the possibility of a change under a new owner.
A source at the meeting told Insider that Musk’s stance on working from home caused the company Slack to “go off.”
Read also: Twitter reportedly gives in to Elon Musk’s demand for user data (commsroom.co)
Jaw de Guzman is the content producer for Comms Room, a knowledge platform and website aimed at assisting the communications industry and its professionals.
