Twitter close to deal to sell itself to Elon Musk: report

Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk. Photo / AP

Twitter's board and Tesla CEO Elon Musk negotiated into the early hours of Monday US time over his bid to buy the social media platform, The New York Times reported.

Musk said last week that he had lined up US$46.5 billion ($70b) in financing to buy Twitter, putting pressure on the company's board to negotiate a deal.

The Times, citing people with knowledge of the situation who it did not identify, said the two sides were discussing details including a timeline and fees if an agreement was signed and then fell apart. The people said the situation was fluid and fast-moving.

Twitter had enacted an anti-takeover measure known as a poison pill that could make a takeover attempt prohibitively expensive. But the board decided to negotiate after Musk updated his proposal to show he had secured financing, according to The Wall Street Journal, which was first to report the negotiations were underway.

On April 14, Musk announced an offer to buy the social media platform for US$54.20 per share, or about US$43b, but did not say at the time how he would finance the acquisition.

Last week, he said in documents filed with US securities regulators that the money would come from Morgan Stanley and other banks, some of it secured by his huge stake in the electric car maker.

Twitter has not commented.

Musk has said he wants to buy Twitter because he doesn't feel it's living up to its potential as a platform for free speech.

In recent weeks, he has voiced a number of proposed changes for the company, from relaxing its content restrictions — such as the rules that suspended former President Donald Trump's account — to ridding the platform of its problems with fake and automated accounts.

Musk is the world's wealthiest person, according to Forbes, with a nearly US$279b fortune. But much of his money is tied up in Tesla stock — he owns about 17 per cent of the company, according to FactSet, which is valued at more than US$1 trillion — and SpaceX, his privately held space company. It's unclear how much cash Musk has.