While the Wall Street Journal reported exclusively on the bet of Carl Icahn and his profits within this short time, there was also the mention of other bold investors who might have carted away with some sizeable gains as well.
Billionaire activist investor, Carl Icahn made a very sizable profit after investing as much as $500 million in acquiring shares of Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) a few months ago. As reported by the Wall Street Journal, the renewed interest from Elon Musk to buy the social media company for the original bd price of $44 billion has excited investors and fueled a new runup in the company’s shares.
Following the revelation of the filing that shows Musk still intends to go ahead with the proposed acquisition in order to take the company public, Twitter shares soared as high as 22% to end Tuesday’s trading session at $52 atop a $39.79 billion market capitalization.
According to the WSJ report, Icahn paid for the shares in the mid-$30 range, making the bet one of the riskiest considering the legal brawl between Elon Musk and the Twitter board could have gone either way. However, Icahn’s bet is hinged on the fact that Elon Musk’s chances of winning the legal battle are very slim and that he will eventually not want to go to trial.
The predictions seemed to work out just fine as a few months after the investments were made, the misunderstanding had a significant turn and the lawsuit may eventually be called off.
Carl Icahn and Other Twitter Bettors
While the Wall Street Journal reported exclusively on the bet of Carl Icahn and his profits within this short time, there was also the mention of other bold investors who might have carted away with some sizeable gains as well.
The other notable mentions include Dan Loeb’s Third Point LLC and D.E Shaw Group.
The proposed push to acquire Twitter has been filled with drama from the very beginning with Elon Musk first acquiring a sizeable stake worth 9.1% of the social media company back in April. The acquisition was promptly followed by the bid to buy up the company on grounds that the platform is rid of free speech and communication independence.
The Musk manifesto was largely bought by key stakeholders in the investment world and he received funding from organizations like Andreessen Horowitz and even Binance Exchange to be a part of the free speech Twitter.
The excitement that surrounded the proposed takeover soon died down when Musk accused Twitter of holding back the needed bot and fake account data that he needed to size up the exact active users on the platform. Whatever constituted the reasons for holding up the data was unclear, but Musk made it seem he would rather pull out of the deal if the data cannot be provided.
The was a stall in negotiations and Musk eventually pulled his offer accusing Twitter of a breach of contract. Twitter sought redress in court and if both parties went to trial, there is a 50:50 chance that Musk will be forced to proceed with the acquisition. All parties will breathe a sigh of relief now that Musk is proceeding with the bid, and investors like Icahn are the biggest beneficiaries of the brawl.
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