Elon Musk’s attempt to purchase hit a significant hurdle when the Tesla CEO stated that an agreement could not move forward without “proof” of a fake account estimate earlier revealed by the company. 

Now it seems Twitter will be ready to force the transaction with Musk to go through. According to The New York Times, Twitter’s board said Tuesday that it plans to “close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement” between the entrepreneur and social media giant. 

“The board and Mr. Musk agreed to a transaction at $54.20 per share,” Twitter’s board said to The Times. “We believe this agreement is in the best interest of all shareholders. We intend to close the transaction and enforce the merger agreement.”

In a regulatory filing Tuesday, Twitter’s board recommended stakeholders in the company vote in favor of the agreement. 

Before stating that the deal couldn’t move forward on Monday, Musk said last week that the $44 billion arrangement to buy the company was “temporarily on hold” until CEO Parag Agrawal publicly proved that fewer than 5% of users are bots or spam accounts.

Podcaster Joe Rogan was duped into discussing a fake story during a broadcast last week. Mediate reports that Rogan was talking about the Australian government working to outlaw growing your own food. While Rogan was railing against Australia, his guest, Hotep Jesus, was scrambling to verify the story.

“You know, I wanna find out what this is, but I read something briefly and I didn’t get into the article, but they were saying that they were trying to pass a bill that would outlaw you growing your own food in Australia,” said Rogan.

Rogan blamed the pandemic and government overreach for the story initially. “I mean, you could justify it, if you’re a real piece of s**t, you could say, well, ‘You know, most pandemics have come from agriculture, animal agriculture,” he added.

A post shared on Facebook claims Victorian Premier Dan Andrews signed a bill prohibiting citizens from growing their own food.

According to Reuters, the Agriculture Legislation Amendment Bill 2022 does not outlaw growing one’s own food. A spokesperson for the Victorian government confirmed the claim is false.

“The closest thing I could find is something like this,” he said as he flashed a different article pertaining to New Zealand on the screen,” Rogan added. 

A couple of weeks ago, Elon Musk shocked the world when he put forth his $44-billion offer to buy Twitter. However, it seems as though the plan to purchase the social media company has hit a significant roadblock.

Musk tweeted that a deal cannot move forward” without “proof” for a fake account estimate earlier revealed by the company. 

“20% fake/spam accounts, while four times what Twitter claims, could be [much] higher,” Musk said. “My offer was based on Twitter’s SEC filings being accurate. Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%. This deal cannot move forward until he does.”

There’s no clear direction where the deal goes from here. However, during an appearance on the latest episode of The Interview, New York Times report Kara Swisher predicted that Musk might have to step back and reconsider his initial offer. 

“He should walk away, pay the billion-dollar breakup fee and then wait until it declines. He could pick it up for $15 billion versus $45 billion. That’s a nice savings. There’s a lot you can do with $30 billion,” Swisher said. 

Now Musk might not walk entirely away from the attempt to buy Twitter; nonetheless, that might take more time than initially, some might have hoped.