Elon Musk, Tesla co-founder buys Twitter for $44 billion

Elon Musk, Tesla co-founder buys Twitter for $44 billion, on Thursday, April 14th, Elon Musk announced an offer to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share. On April 25th, Twitter accepted the deal. This is a huge story with a lot of fast-moving parts to it.

Under pressure, after a week and a half of fighting between the billionaire and the company’s board. Twitter started negotiating with Musk to buy the company at the proposed $54.20 per share price.

Under the terms of the deal, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of the company’s common stock that they own upon closing the proposed transaction. The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Musk, who is CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, disclosed his approximately 9% stake in Twitter.

Twitter confirmed the news on Monday after discussions over the deal accelerated over the weekend when Musk wooed shareholders with financing details of his offer.

“I want to make Twitter better than ever”, says Musk.

Earlier, Musk had posted on his Twitter account, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter because that is what free speech means.”

I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022

Elon Musk is the world’s richest person, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of $273.6bn mostly due to his shareholding in electric vehicle maker Tesla which he runs. He also leads the aerospace firm SpaceX.

“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. 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 spambots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” Musk said in a press statement posted to his Twitter account.

“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

Elon Musk has more than 84 million followers on Twitter, which he has used over the years for everything from sharing memes and discussing his companies to insulting politicians, spreading misleading claims about Covid-19, and making offensive remarks about the transgender community.

The Tesla co-founder has also spoken in the past about an ‘Edit Button’ on the platform and even held a social poll, where he deliberately misspelled yes and no, presumably to highlight that an edit button is needed given the typos that people tend to make while tweeting. It should be noted that Twitter has already confirmed it will introduce an Edit button.