New York: On Oct. 4, Elon Musk reversed himself and offered to honour his original proposal to buy Twitter for $44 billion a deal he had spent the previous several months trying to wriggle out of. He made the latest offer just two weeks before a Twitter lawsuit aimed at forcing Musk to go through with the deal was scheduled to go to trial in Delaware Chancery Court. After receiving Musk's offer, Twitter said it intends to close the transaction.
The two parties now have to close the deal by Friday. If they don't, the Delaware Chancery Court judge overseeing the case plans to reschedule the trial in November. If the case has your head spinning, here's a quick guide to the major events in the saga featuring the billionaire Tesla CEO and the social platform.
January 31: Musk starts buying shares of Twitter in near-daily installments, amassing a 5% stake in the company by mid-March.
March 26: Musk, who has tens of millions of Twitter followers and is active on the site, says he is giving serious thought to building an alternative to Twitter, questioning the platform's commitment to free speech and whether Twitter is undermining democracy. He also privately reaches out to Twitter board members including his friend and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.
March 27: After privately informing Twitter of his growing stake in the company, Musk starts conversations with its CEO and board members about potentially joining the board. Musk also mentions taking Twitter private or starting a competitor, according to later regulatory filings.
April 4: A regulatory filing reveals that Musk has rapidly become the largest shareholder of Twitter after acquiring a 9% stake, or 73.5 million shares, worth about $3 billion.
April 5: Musk is offered a seat on Twitter's board on the condition he amass no more than 14.9% of the company's stock. CEO Parag Agrawal said in a tweet that it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.
April 9: After exchanging pleasantries and bonding by text message over their love of engineering, a short-lived relationship between Agrawal and Musk sours after Musk publicly tweets Is Twitter dying? and gets a message from Agrawal calling the criticism unhelpful. Musk tersely responds: "This is a waste of time. Will make an offer to take Twitter private.
April 11: Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announces Musk will not be joining the board after all.
April 14: Twitter reveals in a securities filing that Musk has offered to buy the company outright for about $44 billion.
April 15: Twitter's board unanimously adopts a poison pill defense in response to Musk's proposed offer, attempting to thwart a hostile takeover.
April 21: Musk lines up $46.5 billion in financing to buy Twitter. Twitter board is under pressure to negotiate.
April 25: Musk reaches a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion and take the company private. The outspoken billionaire has said he wanted to own and privatize Twitter because he thinks it's not living up to its potential as a platform for free speech.
April 29: Musk sells roughly $8.5 billion worth of shares in Tesla to help fund the purchase of Twitter, according to regulatory filings.