- Twitter's poison pill includes a provision that could see investors receive shares at $420 a piece.
- The provision is a likely nod to the ongoing pot 4/20 joke that Elon Musk has relied upon.
- Musk offered to acquire Twitter for $43 billion, or $54.20 per share last week in a hostile buyout.
A provision in the poison pill enacted by Twitter includes the possibility that some shareholders receive stock at $420 per share, a likely nod to the ongoing pot joke from Elon Musk.
Musk offered to acquire Twitter last week for $43 billion, or $54.20 per share in what would be a hostile takeover.
Since then, Twitter adopted a poison pill that would limit a shareholder's ability to acquire more than 15% of the company. Musk currently owns a stake of just over 9%.
Twitter's poison pill includes both a flip-in and flip-over trigger, according to an SEC filing, both of which would grant Twitter investors the ability to buy stock at $210 per share. Buying shares at $210 would then trigger an automatic double in price to $420 per share. This provision would lead to immense dilution and effectively decrease Musk's ownership in the social media platform, limiting his ability to take it over.
"If an acquiring person obtains beneficial ownership of 15% or more, then each right will entitle the holder thereof to purchase, for the exercise price, a number of shares having a then-current market value of twice the exercise price," Twitter explained in its filing. That exercise price is set at $210 per share, meaning a double would lead to a stock price of $420 per share.
Bloomberg's Matt Levine, who first reported of the 420 reference in Twitter's poison pill, said, "two can play this extremely dumb game of using 420 constantly."
And the joke continues on Wednesday, April 20th, with Tesla set to release its first-quarter earnings results on the unofficial holiday for cannabis users.
Twitter did not respond to a request for comment.