Trying to keep up with Elon Musk’s machinations can be dizzying. From the roller coaster ride of his Twitter acquisition to the no-you-can’t/yes-you-can share Substack links squabble, the ebullient billionaire seems to thrive on keeping everyone guessing.
And while Monday morning saw Musk toy with a temporary name change himself (to “Harry Bōlz” — cue your inner 12-year-old-boy-humor) and flirt with removing the “w” from the exterior signage of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters (cue your inner 12-year-old-boy-humor again)…
quick recap. Elon is now "Harry Bolz" on Twitter and removed the "w" in Twitter to read "Titter."
Ladies and gentlemen: 2023. pic.twitter.com/DMSmZNQIMd
— gaut (@0xgaut) April 10, 2023
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) April 10, 2023
…it appears there was a more significant name change — of the legal variety — for the biz underway.
Musk’s affinity for the letter “X” is readily apparent: There’s SpaceX and the Model X Tesla, as well as his seventh child, X AE A-XII, a/k/a “X.”
On Monday, Slate published an article detailing the formal merger of Twitter Inc. into X Corp.
The change was first noted by astute Twitter user “SpacTrader110,” on April 4th.
— SpacTrader110 (@SpacTrader110) April 4, 2023
Slate lays out the M&A nitty gritty here:
It’s hard to know what to make of Musk’s transformation of Twitter into X Corp. (When asked for comment, Twitter responded with a poop emoji, as is its recent custom.) Elon Musk, who owns Twitter as well as X Holdings Corp., has not yet revealed this merger to the public. But it appears to have been on his mind since he first plotted his purchase of the social media company. In April 2022, Musk registered X Holdings I, II, and III in Delaware, three separate companies designed to facilitate his purchase of Twitter. According to that deal, Twitter would merge with X Holdings II, but keep its name and general corporate structure while continuing to operate under Delaware law. X Holdings I, controlled by Musk, would then serve as the merged entity’s parent company, while X Holdings III would take on the $13 billion loan that a group of big banks provided Musk to help cover the $44 billion purchase. (According to Twitter’s demands in its litigation against Musk, X Holdings I would be intended “solely for the purpose of engaging in, and arranging financing for, the transactions.”)
Here’s where things get interesting. As the merger agreement stated, X Holdings II would cease to exist as a functioning entity after merging with Twitter. So the official structure after Musk’s takeover was: X Holdings I oversees Twitter Inc., while X Holdings III handles the cash. The Nevada filings show this exact arrangement is no longer in effect.
According to the Nevada secretary of state’s online business portal, Elon Musk registered two new businesses in the state on March 9: X Holdings Corp., and X Corp. Then, on March 15, Musk applied to merge those Nevada businesses with two of his existing companies: X Holdings I with X Holdings Corp., and Twitter Inc. with X Corp. In the latter’s case, the articles of the merger mandate that X Corp. fully acquire Twitter—meaning that, for all intents and purposes, “Twitter Inc.” no longer exists as a Delaware-based company. Now it’s part of X Corp., whose parent company is the $2 million X Holdings Corp. And that means X Holdings I no longer exists, either. Both X Holdings Corp. and X Corp. now fall under Nevada’s jurisdiction instead of Delaware’s.
In case that’s got your eyes crossing, in a nutshell, Twitter Inc. has now been fully acquired by X Corp. and no longer exists as a distinct corporate entity, and X Holdings Corp. is now the parent company of X Corp., with both entities now being Nevada corporations rather than Delaware corporations.
What that means from a practical standpoint remains to be seen, of course. There are a multitude of changes afoot at the social media behemoth — and while the apparent commitment of Musk to free(er) speech is admirable, the whiplash-inducing daily hijinks leave one wondering if the platform will still be recognizable when the dust settles.
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