By Alice Seeley
On June 3, Twitter announced that the U.S. antitrust waiting period for Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter officially expired, removing another barrier to the deal.
The antitrust waiting period is a 30-day waiting period established under the Hart-Scott-Rodino Antitrust Improvements Act of 1976. The period gives the Federal Trade Commission and Justice Department time to review a transaction for potential antitrust violations.
The 30-day period for Musk’s acquisition of Twitter expired on June 2, avoiding an investigation that could have lasted months.
Now that the period has expired, the finalization of the deal is subject to remaining customary closing conditions, including approval by Twitter stockholders and any other regulatory approvals. At the social media company’s annual shareholder meeting, Twitter’s CEO, Parag Agrawal, stated that Twitter is currently “working through” the deal but declined to comment further due to regulatory reasons.
Following Twitter’s announcement that the antitrust waiting period had passed, the social media company’s shares increased by 1.8% by Friday evening. However, Twitter’s shares fell on June 6 after Musk said he could terminate the merger deal if the social-media company continued to refuse to provide the information he requested regarding spam and fake accounts.
