Elon’s Pivot & Banker Bonus Blues

Elon Musk
This week brought new developments in Musk's quest to own Twitter. Photo: Yichuan Cao/Getty Images
William D. Cohan
June 22, 2022

We now have a couple of new developments in the long-running soap opera that is, theoretically anyway, Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter. First, on Tuesday morning, a revised preliminary proxy statement from Twitter was filed with the S.E.C. Of course, since the proxy is not marked to show changes—it should be!—it’s difficult to know what’s actually new. There is a grand invitation to shareholders to attend a “special meeting” to vote on Elon’s proposed $44 billion acquisition but there is an asterisk in place of where the date for the meeting should be. There is also the use of the subjunctive in the proxy, as in, “If the merger is completed, you will be entitled to receive $54.20 in cash…”