Twitter stock would be 37% lower in the absence of Elon Musk's takeover bid and there's a possibility the Tesla chief reprices the deal, short seller warns

• Twitter's implied price is 37% lower in the absence of Elon Musk's bid, a short seller said Monday.
• The Tesla chief has all of the leverage and there is a risk the proposed deal is repriced lower.

Elon Musk could reprice his takeover bid for Twitter to better reflect risks in both the broader market and the company itself, according to a Monday report from Hindenburg Research.

The deal in its current form is threatened, the analysts wrote, because of several key developments in the market since Musk's initial April 14 offer, including a 17.6% dip in the Nasdaq.

The Tesla CEO agreed with Twitter's board to take the social media platform private at $54.20 a share. In the absence of Musk's bid, Twitter's stock price would be about $31.40, trading roughly 37% lower than Friday's closing price, the Hindenburg analysts wrote.

"Twitter has outperformed the Nasdaq by ~43% since Musk disclosed his initial position, setting the stock up for a material downside reversion should Musk walk away from the deal," the report reads.

What's more, they highlighted how Twitter's weak first quarter earnings and overstated user-base suggest further downside that hasn't yet been priced in, should Musk end up walking away.

"We suspect that Twitter continues to overstate its true daily active users, despite the revision," the Hindenburg Research report said. "As indicated by Musk, the platform is flooded with bots, spam, and scam accounts that likely inflate its genuine user metrics even further."

The $1 billion so-called breakup fee that allows Musk to ditch the deal looms, the analysts believe. This piles more risk on top of the potential that Musk sells his 9.2% stake should the deal fall through.

"Given the above collective dynamic, Musk has incredible leverage to renegotiate should he choose to," the authors wrote.

Meanwhile, the report points out that the social platform's board stands to benefit from a deal even if it were repriced lower, as "the board holds virtually no stake in Twitter."

"Any party rolling (or contributing) equity would prefer a lower price with lower commensurate debt, given that their equity stake will remain static regardless," the analysts wrote.

While the analysts also noted the deal puts undue pressure on Tesla, given that Musk pledged over 88 million shares of the EV maker as collateral for loans, they said the board would likely agree to a repriced deal, given the present circumstances.

"In our view, Musk holds all the cards here," the analysts concluded. "We agree with Elon Musk that Twitter has become the de facto public square. We also agree that the pressures of being a public company make it harder to advance the mission of Twitter serving as an open, trusted forum for diverse ideas."

Twitter stock fell as much as 4% Monday, trading at roughly $48.81 as of 1:00 p.m. ET.