Republican Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis vowed Tuesday to hold Twitter board members “accountable” for adopting a “poison pill” over Elon Musk’s offer.
Twitter board members recently confirmed their “poison pill” defense to Musk’s $43.4 billion offer to buy the social media company. The “poison pill” is a shareholder’s plan to limit a single shareholder from purchasing too many shares and forcing the company into a sale. Musk became the largest shareholder after purchasing 9.2% stake in early April.
“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 hasn’t exactly been great in returns on investment. It’s been pretty stagnant for many, many years,” the governor said. “But nevertheless, I think that’s probably an injury to the fund, so we’re going to be looking at ways that the state of Florida potentially can be holding these Twitter board of directors accountable for breaching their fiduciary duty.”
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The “poison pill” also allows for shareholders to buy more stock at a cheaper price and potentially dilute Musk’s ownership stake to prevent him from purchasing the entire company. The Tesla CEO said Thursday that board members would be breaching their fiduciary duty if they take “actions contrary to shareholder interests.” (RELATED: ‘Says Something You Don’t Like’: Elon Musk Explains What ‘Healthy, Functioning Free Speech Looks Like)
“If the current Twitter board takes actions contrary to shareholder interests, they would be breaching their fiduciary duty,” Musk tweeted Thursday. “The liability they would thereby assume would be titanic in scale.”
Musk announced Monday that Twitter board members would receive a $0 salary if his bid succeeds. He has also told TED head Chris Anderson that he has a “Plan B” if his multibillion dollar offer does not go through, but went into no specifics.