Twitter board unanimously recommends shareholders approve Elon Musk’s $44 billion buyout offer

Twitter’s board of directors has unanimously recommended that the social media company’s shareholders vote to approve its sale to Elon Musk, according to a regulatory filing on Tuesday.

“Twitter’s Board of Directors, after considering the factors more fully described in the enclosed proxy statement, unanimously determined that the merger agreement is advisable and the merger and the other transactions contemplated by the merger agreement are fair to, advisable and in the best interests of Twitter and its stockholders,” the company said.

Twitter (TWTR) plans to hold a special shareholder meeting for a vote on the acquisition, one of the final steps needed to close the deal, on an undisclosed date in the coming months.

Musk has previously threatened to pull out of the merger agreement he signed on April 25, citing concerns over fake accounts. Twitter’s board, however, insists that it will enforce the terms of the agreement.

A date for the shareholder vote has not yet been set, but the merger agreement includes a deadline of October 24 to consummate the deal.

Musk reiterated his desire to move forward with the deal last week during a virtual meeting with Twitter employees, though shares of Twitter remain far below his offering price, signaling considerable doubt that it will happen at the agreed price.

On Tuesday at the Qatar Economic Forum in an interview with Bloomberg, Musk listed the approval of the deal by shareholders as one of several “unresolved matters” related to the Twitter deal.

Musk said that Twitter has repeatedly refused to disclose the actual number of bots on the platform. “There is the question of, will the debt portion of the round come together and then will the shareholders vote in favour,” he said. He said he will focus on “driving the product” at Twitter and does not want to become the CEO of the micro-blogging platform.

Musk said he does not believe in Twitter findings, which say false or spam accounts represent fewer than 5 percent of its monetisable daily active users (229 million). He said that Twitter’s algorithm might be manipulating users and has “very bot-friendly” rules.

Musk also asked the US SEC to probe whether Twitter’s claim on the number of its user base is true.