After weeks of cat and mouse chase, the world’s richest man Elon Musk finally bought the social media company Twitter for approximately $44 Billion.
It’s no surprise that Elon Musk is already CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, creator of The Boring Company, and the world’s wealthiest individual. He now has the title of “Owner of Twitter” to add to his impressive résumé.
This afternoon Twitter said it had reached a deal with Elon Musk worth around $44 billion to acquire the company. Twitter will become a privately owned firm once the transaction is completed.
By retweeting his own remarks from the news release announcing the purchase, Tesla CEO Elon Musk celebrated the acquisition on Twitter.
There were apparently more questions than firm, long-term solutions at an all-staff meeting on Monday at 2 p.m. Pacific time. An anonymous source informed tech reporter Alex Heath of The Verge that Parag Agrawal would remain Twitter’s CEO for at least the next six months until Musk’s acquisition is finalized. A second tweet from Kurt Wagner, a Bloomberg technology writer, verified this. In addition, Agrawal stated at the meeting that no layoffs will take place “at this moment.” ‘Agrawal’s concluding speech was,’ tweeted Heath, “We don’t know everything. There is a great deal of unpredictability at the moment.”
Musk’s acquisition of Twitter also means that the company’s current board of directors will likely be replaced and that the company will no longer be publicly listed. Musk has stated in an SEC filing that Twitter should be turned into a private corporation.
There had been numerous back-and-forths between the billionaire and the Twitter board before the purchase was finalized.
What was the reason behind Musk’s purchase of Twitter?
Both Musk and his critics are known to be frequent Twitter users. “Free speech is fundamental to a functioning democracy,” Musk said on Twitter on March 25th. He also included a yes/no poll asking his followers whether they “think Twitter rigorously conforms to this principle.” Another tweet from him hinted at his grand plans, stating, “The results of this survey have huge impacts. Please take your time and vote wisely.” Moreover, two million people weighed in on the issue, with 70.4% voting “no” and 29.6% voting “yes.”
Elon Musk tweeted a second time the following day: “Because Twitter functions as the de facto town square, a lack of respect for free speech profoundly harms democracy. What are the best options?” and “Do we need a new platform?”
In contrast to other social media sites, Twitter’s content control is particularly lenient. If there is even less control, misinformation and bot-manufactured extreme movements might flourish on the web.)
The Chase begins between Musk and the Board Members of Twitter.
It was reported on April 4th by the world’s most terminally internet millionaire that he had acquired 9.2 percent of Twitter’s stock, making him the company’s single largest shareholder. On the same day, he tweeted a poll asking, “Do you want an edit button??” On March 24th, Musk acquired the stock, but he didn’t file the paperwork with the SEC until ten days later.
On April 5th, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced that Tesla CEO Elon Musk would join the company’s board of directors. As a result of the backlash, Twitter decided to arrange an AMA (Ask Me Anything) with the heir to the South African, Apartheid-era emerald. The deal collapsed two days later, on April 11th. Because being a board member would have prevented him from acquiring more than 14.9 percent of Twitter’s stock, Musk decided not to join the company’s board.
As soon as it became evident that the Dogecoin pioneer would no longer be a Twitter board member, Agrawal remarked, “I believe this is for the best.” In a lawsuit filed on April 12th, Twitter investor Marc Rasella accused Musk of failing to promptly disclose his 9.2% stake in the company after learning of Musk’s acquisition.
Elon Musk filed paperwork with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on April 13th announcing the purchase of all of Twitter’s stock at $52.40 per share in cash. He threatened to sell out his 9.2 percent ownership in the firm if his offer was rejected, which would have had the effect of collapsing the stock. According to Exhibit B of his SEC filing, “My offer is my best and last offer, and if it is not accepted, I would need to reevaluate my position as a shareholder. “Twitter’s potential is truly limitless. I shall open it for you, “he continued ominously.
Twitter’s board of directors implemented a “poison pill” rights plan on April 15th due to that statement. Other shareholders would be able to purchase more shares at a discount if one shareholder acquired more than 15% of the firm. On the surface, this meant that Grimes’ boyfriend, who has been and gone, couldn’t just buy all of Twitter without at least talking to the board first.
Even so, Tesla CEO Elon Musk stood firm. On April 24th, Twitter’s board began discussions with Musk. When those conversations were first announced, Dogecoin’s value soared by about 9%, while the shares related to Trump’s Truth social media company plummeted by more than 5% during that period. After being banned from Twitter for life, Trump created the little-used app. If Twitter doesn’t do bans like his, there will be even less need for “Truth.”
Even his worst opponents should remain on Twitter since that is what free speech is all about, Tesla CEO Elon Musk said about midday Monday. To be clear, this is not what the First Amendment’s guarantee of freedom of expression means. In the United States, no one is entitled to use private social media sites such as Twitter or Facebook without permission from the government.
When it comes to misunderstandings, Musk isn’t alone. There’s a reason why Ron DeSantis is Florida’s governor: He doesn’t seem to understand the concept of free speech. A post from him Monday morning stated that Elon Musk’s plan to acquire Twitter was a “good bargain for stockholders” and that the site could become a “place where free expression can thrive, not a tool for narrative enforcement.”
Who knows what Elon Musk will do with Twitter after he buys it?
In the short term, Twitter Inc. is in a “code freeze,” which means it won’t allow changes to its products or platforms unless they are “business-critical,” Bloomberg reports. Until a vice-president gives the go-ahead, corporate personnel can’t make any changes to the website. According to Bloomberg, the action was made as a precautionary measure to keep irate employees from “going rogue.”
It’s unclear how Twitter will alter under Musk’s leadership in the long run despite the edit button tweet and Musk’s emphasis on “free expression” that isn’t censored. A request for a response from Gizmodo went unanswered, both on Twitter and by Elon Musk.
Retweeting several of his earlier tweets, Musk said: “A healthy democracy relies on free speech to work, and Twitter serves as the digital town square where important issues affecting the future of humankind are discussed and debated. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by adding new features, making the algorithms public so that more people can trust them, defeating the spambots, and verifying that everyone is a real person.”
“spambots” have been regularly mentioned by Musk as one of the company’s primary goals:
According to many observers, Tesla CEO Elon Musk will utilize his leadership of the firm to re-platform controversial public personalities and news organizations who were previously banned from the site. On Monday morning, Joan Donovan, research director of Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Public Policy tweeted: “If Musk acquires Twitter, he would undoubtedly restore Trump to the platform and open the way for a plausible 2024 run.”
Another view of Donovan’s is that Twitter, “FWIW,” will become a more fertile ground for cultural warfare. Content moderation tampering will go into overdrive targeting LGBT groups, women, BIPOC, and anybody else fighting for civil rights if there is a mandate for “free expression.”
Forty percent of self-described “heavy Twitter users” agreed in an Ipsos poll issued on April 5th that Musk’s purchase of the platform will “lead Twitter to enable greater free expression.” The remaining forty percent felt it would “increase the quality of debate on Twitter.”
How much is Tesla CEO Elon Musk getting paid?
Today, a deal was made that says an unnamed company owned by Elon Musk will pay around $44 billion. It is expected that Twitter shareholders would get $54.20 in cash for each share of common stock they possess when the proposed transaction is completed. A 38 percent premium over the closing price of Twitter’s stock on April 1st, 2022, which was the final trading day before Mr. Musk publicly announced his approximately 9 percent interest in Twitter, the acquisition price
