Ron DeSantis threatens to punish Twitter for blocking Elon Musk takeover

Republican says that platform’s board ‘know they can’t control’ world’s richest person

Florida governor Ron DeSantis has threatened to punish Twitter for blocking Elon Musk’s $43bn takeover of the social media platform.

The Twitter board activated a “poison pill” strategy to defend itself against the Tesla entrepreneur’s stunning attempt to buy the company, which he announced last week.

“We’re gonna be looking at ways the state of Florida potentially can be holding these Twitter board of directors accountable for breaching their fiduciary duty,” the Republican politician said.

“The state of Florida and our pension system, we have shares of Twitter, I didn’t buy it, we have people that run the fund. But, nevertheless, it hasnt exactly been great on returns on investment, it has been pretty stagnant for many, many years. To me, I think that is probably an injury to the fund.”

And he told his supporters to “stay tuned” on action against the Twitter board and said that Mr Musk was trying to “liberate” the platform from censorship.

Mr Musk made an all cash bid to buy Twitter after taking a 9.2 per cent stake in the company, and insisted he was the right leader to “unlock” its “extraordinary potential”.

And Mr DeSantis has now rallied against Twitter, which has come under fire from conservatives for banning the likes of Donald Trump in the wake of the US Capitol riot.

The politician, who has his eyes set on a 2024 White House run against Mr Trump, said there was no good business reason for rejecting the bid.

“They did a 20 per cent premium, and the board of directors effectively rejected that by doing a ‘poison pill’,” he added.

“The question is why would you reject the 20 per cent premium? I don’t think that was a rejection based on financial concerns or business judgement.

“They rejected it because they know they can’t control Elon Musk, they know he will not accept the narrative, and that their little play toy of Twitter would not be used to enforce orthodoxy and to basically prop-up the regime and these failed legacy media outlets.

“That is why they did it, it was not in my judgement because it was not a good business deal and the question now is what is the recourse?”