Twitter, Musk deal includes $1bn termination agreement

Twitter will be required to pay a termination fee of $1bn under certain circumstances if it ends an agreement to be acquired by Elon Musk for $44bn, according to a US securities filing on Tuesday.

Musk will also be subjected to the same fee if he ends the deal.

The billionaire entrepreneur is taking the 16-year-old company private for $54.20 a share in one of the biggest leveraged buyout deals in history. He has lined up financing for the deal that includes $25.5bn in debt financing from Morgan Stanley and other financial institutions, including margin loans backed by his equity stake in Tesla, and $21bn in equity financing to be provided by Musk himself.

The filing also includes details about changes to Twitter’s employee equity programme given that Twitter will be private once the deal closes.

Employee stock grants will continue to vest until the deal closes, the filing says, but any unvested stock awards will be canceled, and employees will instead have the option to be paid out in cash when those awards would have vested.