Twitter sets date for shareholders to vote on Elon Musk’s $44bn takeover offer

Company and Tesla boss heading to court in October as he tries to walk away from deal

Twitter has set a date for shareholders to vote on Elon Musk’s $44bn takeover offer, despite now being embroiled in a legal battle with the Tesla boss who says he no longer wants to buy it.

The social media platform sent a letter to shareholders telling them it would hold a virtual special meeting on 13 September to vote on Mr Musk’s offer, according to a filing made with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

It comes as Twitter and the world’s richest person are heading to court in October after he moved to terminate his deal to buy the company earlier this month.

The SpaceX CEO notified Twitter on 8 July that he was cancelling the acquisition, claiming that the San Francisco-based company had failed to give accurate information on the number of bots and fake accounts.

He alleges that the company’s estimate of five per cent of its accounts being fake is in fact “wildly higher”, while Twitter says that it has already spent $33m on dealing with the billionaire.

Twitter sued Mr Musk to force the deal through and claimed that he “refuses to honor his obligations to Twitter and its stockholders because the deal he signed no longer serves his personal interests.”

Mr Musk offered $54.20 per share when he announced his takeover attempt in April, and the price as of Tuesday afternoon stood at $39.34.

Twitter’s board of directors has previously recommended its shareholders approve the sale to Mr Musk.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in a statement at the time.

“I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”