(not saying you’re wrong, both or neither of these may be true)
Part of my analysis is based on the rumor that Twitter completed a valuation over the weekend, and it wasn't super favorable. But I've got no reliable reporting that establishes that.
Either way, my real point is just that the board could easily have stopped this deal if they wanted to; in fact, they didn't even have to do anything to do stop it.
Maybe if the board had information that hadn't been published yet showing that the company's financials had completely tanked since the last earnings report it would be different, but other than that, Twitter's financials are obviously public, and even if the board used something like the DCF method and obtained a number much lower than the market cap, that has absolutely no bearing on whether they would accept a certain price from Musk.
So, no, it's really the share price that matters in this situation.
Also, even if you're purely talking about valuations, there are other common valuation methods like the comparable method that look at what similar companies have received based on their share price, so the idea that the board would decide to sell purely based on cashflow projections is not correct.
> Maybe if the board had information that hadn't been published yet [...]
Yes, Musk's bid may be overpaying, but in that case board's duty is to grab the money - and that's probably why he is overpaying.
The most boring conclusion here (boringness on message boards usually being a strong proxy for accuracy) is that the board's initial reaction to Musk's offer was reflexive, the same way you'd push back on someone offering to buy your house based on a fixed premium from like Zillow, and that over the ensuing weeks they've managed to do the homework to evaluate the deal, and they've decided Musk is overpaying, so they're taking him up on it.
From everything I've read --- I'm not an expert and someone like 'JumpCrisscross could jump in and correct me --- is that the deal blowing up was essentially the default state, once the shareholder rights plan was put in place.