On Tuesday, most of the Twitter (TWTR) shareholders voted in favor of Musk’s $44 billion takeover deal, a value of $54.20 per share. The company’s stock opened Tuesday at under $41 per share, nearly 25% below the deal price. A preliminary count showed that 98.6% of the votes favor the deal, said Twitter.
The vote came days after Elon Musk’s third letter to Twitter, asking to terminate their deal, with this one attached to a purported $7.75 million severance payment the company initiated to its former head of security, Peiter Zatko, who later warned about its alleged security and privacy vulnerabilities.
In the letter, Musk’s attorneys claimed the payment was made to Zatko and his lawyers on June 28 as part of a separation contract that violated a provision of the acquisition contract. According to the contract, Twitter agreed not to give any severance payments to employees in amounts outside the ordinary track of business consistent with past practice. Twitter slammed Musk’s latest efforts to get out of the deal as invalid and wrongful.
Read More: Twitter Board Accepts Musk’s Offer Of $44 Billion
Musk sent the first letter to terminate the deal in the month of July, alleging that Twitter violated the agreement by misrepresenting the figures of spam and fake bot accounts on its platform. Twitter sued Elon Musk to complete the acquisition, accusing the billionaire of using bots as a pretext to exit a deal he developed over buyer’s remorse following a market decline.
Zatko testified at the US Senate on Tuesday about what he alleged are Twitter’s strict security and privacy vulnerabilities, including possibly having foreign intelligence agents on its payroll. The case between Musk and Twitter is scheduled to go to trial on October 17.
