Tech Analyst Says ‘White Knight’ Could Save Twitter From Musk Takeover

• Tech analyst Dan Ives said that Twitter’s board has few options to deal with Elon Musk’s bid to buy the company.
• Ives said one option would be to find a “white knight,” or a friendly investor, to make an offer.
• He said Musk’s tender offer was an “alternative way to put pressure” on Twitter’s board of directors.

A tech analyst said that Twitter might be running out of options to fend off Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk’s bid to take over the company, with one remaining option being to find a friendly investor or a “white knight.”

Dan Ives, an analyst at investment firm Wedbush, told Fortune that a white knight — the financial term for an investor that saves a company from a hostile takeover by acquiring it at the last minute — could be Twitter’s only chance of dodging Musk’s buyout bid.

Ives noted that Musk’s tender offer was an “alternative way to put pressure on the board” of Twitter after the company implemented a poison pill defense to thwart the buyout.

Musk said on Thursday that he had secured $46.5 billion to finance his potential tender offer, which would be made directly to Twitter’s shareholders while cutting out its board and management.

“In the next 48 to 72 hours, they are either going to have to officially decline the bid or come up with a second offer,” Ives told Fortune. 

The same article listed payment firm PayPal, software company Oracle, and Elliott Investment Management — a hedge fund and Twitter shareholder — as potential white knights for Twitter.

This month, billionaire investor Mark Cuban speculated that companies were likely looking at options to acquire Twitter without violating anti-trust laws. 

“Every major tech company, Google, fb, et al is on the phone with their anti trust lawyers asking if they can buy Twitter and get it approved,” Cuban tweeted on April 14. 

“And Twitter is on the phone with their lawyers asking which can be their white knight. Gonna be interesting,” Cuban continued. 

Twitter has not responded yet to Musk’s offer to buy the company for $54.20 per share, although the Wall Street Journal reported that the company was likely to reject the bid sometime in the next week.