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If Elon Musk scraps Twitter deal, here's what may happen to the stock

Twitter investors should brace for an all-out crash in the stock price if Tesla CEO Elon Musk abandons his bid for the social media platform, warns one veteran tech analyst.

"In the absence of a bid, we would not be surprised to see the stock find a floor at $22.50," said Jefferies analyst Brent Thill said Tuesday in a new note to clients. Such a price would be about 40% lower than Twitter's current trading level.

Musk's outstanding deal for Twitter is for $54.20 a share.

The path is being cut for that price put forth by Thill for Twitter shares, by Musk's own doing.

In an early morning Tweet, Musk said “Yesterday, Twitter’s CEO publicly refused to show proof of <5%," adding that “this deal cannot move forward until he does."

The new tweet from Musk arrives after a tense exchange on the social media platform on Monday.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal wrote a long tweet thread to try to counter Musk's claims the platform was chock full of fake accounts.

"We suspend over half a million spam accounts every day, usually before any of you even see them on Twitter," Agrawal said in the 13-tweet thread. "We also lock millions of accounts each week that we suspect may be spam — if they can’t pass human verification challenges (captchas, phone verification, etc)."

Musk responded with a poop emoji.

Musk, the world's richest person on paper, then followed up 14 minutes later with: "So how do advertisers know what they’re getting for their money? This is fundamental to the financial health of Twitter."

Thill says Musk is simply trying to negotiate a lower price for Twitter. A fair value for Twitter in light of the rout in tech stocks in recent months would be $42 a share, Thill estimates.

Other analysts on Wall Street think a deal doesn't get done.

"The chances of a deal ultimately getting done is not looking good now and it's likely a 60%+ chance from our view Musk ultimately walks from the deal and pays the breakup fee," Wedbush tech analyst Dan Ives said in a note to clients.

Brian Sozzi is an editor-at-large and anchor at Yahoo Finance. Follow Sozzi on Twitter @BrianSozzi and on LinkedIn.

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