By Yasin Ebrahim

Invesitng.com – Twitter said Monday it had accepted Tesla (NASDAQ:) CEO Elon Musk’s $44 billion to take the social media company private.

Twitter Inc Recent trading saw a more than 5% increase in (NYSE:).

Twitter shareholders receive $54.20 per Twitter share.

This purchase price is 38% higher than Twitter’s April 1 stock closing price of $22.22 on April 1, 2022. That was the last day trading before Musk revealed his roughly 9% share in Twitter.

“The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders,” Twitter said.

The announcement comes after Twitter last week attempted to thwart Musk’s attempt to build up a bigger stake to take over the company by launching a limited duration shareholder rights plan, or “poison pill.”

The limited duration shareholder rights plan would allow other shareholders to buy shares of Twitter at a discount, diluting Musk’s stake if it reaches 15%, which is the threshold for triggering the so-called poison pill, making it expensive for him to acquire the company.

This move gave Twitter time to search for another buyer, but Twitter failed to secure a white knight. Musk had to reconsider Musk’s offer once he received private equity backing. 

“While the board approved the poison pill which essentially gave them time to find a “white knight” and second bidder, likely they are now empty handed from private equity circles staring at a hostile tender offer process likely kicked off this week by Musk for the bid,” Wedbush said in a note.

Musk secured $25.5 billion of fully committed debt and margin loan financing and is providing an approximately $21.0 billion equity commitment toward the deal, Twitter said.