Twitter has officially confirmed that Elon Musk clinched a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion on Monday, in a transaction that will shift control of the social media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world’s richest person. The cash deal at $54.20 per share is valued at around $44 billion. Twitter would become a private company on completion of the deal, which requires shareholder and regulatory approval.
Discussions over the deal, which last week appeared uncertain, accelerated over the weekend after Musk wooed Twitter shareholders with financing details of his offer. Under pressure, Twitter started negotiating with Musk to buy the company at the proposed $54.20 per share price, according to a press release. The deal ends Twitter’s run as a public company since its 2013 initial public offering.
‘Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated’, Musk said in a statement, adding, ‘I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it’.
???? Yesss!!! ???? pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
As the news of Twitter and Elon Musk reaching an agreement was confirmed, the Tesla CEO in his latest tweet said, ‘I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means’. Twitter’s shares were up about 6% following the news. Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s CEO, said, ‘Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important’.
Though Musk has indicated that his primary interest in Twitter has to do with what he views as the company’s censorship of free speech, Musk critics are concerned that the billionaire’s control over the platform will result in the silencing of their voices and others with whom he may disagree, given that he’s often blocked critics from his personal account. Twitter’s board at first enacted an anti-takeover measure known as a poison pill that could have made a takeover attempt prohibitively expensive. But when Musk outlined the financial commitments he’d lined up to back his offer of $46.5 billion- and no other bidders emerged, the board opened negotiations with him.
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