According to the New York Times and several other sources, Twitter agreed to be taken over by Elon Musk at $54.20 a share, 38% higher than its stock price. The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has been in the news all month after his “best and final” offer to buy the company for about $44 billion. Twitter had been hush-hush about the offer, while negotiations were still in progress.
Musk revealed last week that he had secured over $46 billion in financing in order to buy Twitter, making it a very sweet offer. Only a few weeks ago, Musk said that he had obtained more than 9% ownership in the company and was talking about the changes he wanted to make to the platform. Over the coming days in April, there was much controversy about what the Twitter board would do and what the outcome would be. Twitter shares have been trading below offer price because investors were skeptical about the deal, but today Twitter shares were up 4.5% in pre-market trading in New York at $51.15.
The richest man in the world will now be in charge of one of the most influential social media platforms. Musk has repeatedly said that he wants to encourage free speech and bring Twitter to its highest potential. In his offer letter to the Twitter board, he wrote “I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.”
At first Twitter’s board was reluctant to go ahead with the takeover, but after a full night of negotiations, on Monday afternoon they announced they had accepted Musk’s offer.
There is speculation about how Mr. Musk’s takeover of Twitter will affect the platform. Musk frequently has said that Twitter’s moderators interfere with free speech and should be more flexible. Free speech appears to be his main emphasis. He has not publicly commented on what he would do about former president Donald Trump‘s Twitter account, but there is speculation that he might reinstate it. Mr. Trump was kicked off the Twitter platform for inciting violence, after the January 6 riot at the Capitol. Facebook also banned the former president for violations of their policies.
In a tweet on Thursday, the Tesla CEO said one goal he has is to eliminate spam bots and loosen Twitter’s moderation policies to allow freer discourse.
After becoming Twitter’s largest shareholder, obtaining more than 9% of the company, and declining to join Twitter board, Mr. Musk has played the game well, and is now the owner of Twitter, with the largest deal to take a company private in at least 20 years.
