Elon Musk, Twitter Sued by Florida Pension Fund Over $44bn Takeover
These might not be the best times for popular business magnate Elon Musk as his $44 billion buyout of Twitter Inc. has been challenged in a lawsuit by a Florida pension fund that argues the deal can’t close before 2025 because Musk was an “interested shareholder” in the social networking platform.
The suit was filed by the Orlando Police Pension Fund at the Delaware Chancery Court. According to the complaint, Musk had agreements with other major Twitter shareholders — including founder Jack Dorsey — to rely on their holdings when offering to take the company private last month. Those arrangements triggered a Delaware law that calls for a three-year delay in closing such deals, the fund claims.
Musk’s Twitter acquisition stands out as one of the biggest leveraged buyout deals in history. He disclosed earlier this week that a group of investors were kicking in more than $7 billion of equity towards the deal. They include Oracle Corp. billionaire Larry Ellison, venture-capital firm Sequoia Capital and cryptocurrency exchange Binance Holdings Ltd.
As at the time of writing this, a representative for Musk didn’t immediately return an email seeking comment on the pension fund’s suit.
