Elon Musk Twitter

Twitter's 11-member board met on Sunday morning to discuss Mr. Musk's offer to buy the company and take it private.

On Saturday, Mr. Musk took aim at the billionaire Bill Gates, saying that Mr. Gates had taken a “short” position on the stock of Tesla, which meant that Mr. Gates was betting the carmaker’s shares would fall. Last year, Mr. Musk had changed his title at Tesla from chief executive to technoking. Twitter also adopted a “poison pill,” a defensive maneuver that would prevent Mr. Musk from accumulating more of the company’s stock. Mr. Musk, 50, has made clear that he sees many deficiencies in Twitter as a social media service. When Mr. Musk briefly flirted with joining Twitter’s board this month, Mr. Dorsey tweeted, “I’m really happy Elon is joining the Twitter board! The discussions followed a Twitter board meeting on Sunday morning to discuss Mr. Musk’s offer, the people said. Twitter’s stock rose above $70 a share last year when the company announced goals to double its revenue, but has since fallen to around $48 as investors have questioned its ability to meet those targets. He said he would use another $21 billion in cash to buy the rest of Twitter’s equity. A Twitter spokesman declined to comment. But his proposal was quickly dismissed by Wall Street because it was unclear if he could come up with the money to do the deal. The two sides were discussing details including a timeline to close any potential deal and any fees that would be paid if an agreement were signed and then fell apart, they said. An agreement is not yet final and may still fall apart, but what had initially seemed to be a highly improbable deal appeared to be nearing an endgame.