The billionaire is waging a highly public attack against the company, weaponizing its own platform against it. His campaign defies many of the conventions around buyout battles.
Elon Musk’s highly visible and dramatic attempt to take over Twitter so unconventional, it helps to look at what happened the last time Twitter encountered another unexpected investor in the company.
“A smart activist can leverage the power of social media and other forms of distribution to connect beyond traditional methods,” says Connor Haley, founder of activist firm Alta Fox Capital. He hasn’t gone full Musk in his latest campaign against Hasbro. But he has recognized how the internet and social media give him an intimate ability to reach the company’s shareholders and customers, bolstering his proposals for the business, which include spinning off its trading-cards unit.
“This is totally weird and unusual. Sure you’ve got some other takeovers lately, like Jos. A. Bank trying to merge with Men’s Warehouse,” says Carliss Chatman, a professor of corporate law at Washington and Lee. “But this is some rich megalomaniac trying to buy something and treating it all like playing with a toy.”
In a tweet exchange with crypto billionaire Cameron Winklevoss, Musk suggested the directors could face “titanic” liability if they reject his bid, seeming to advocate for shareholder lawsuits against the board. He highlighted another user’s post that screenshotted director Robert Zoellick’s blank Twitter feed. Musk also criticized the board members’ small shareholdings in Twitter stock, implying that if they held more, they’d better understand why they should take his deal.
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