Twitter’s board has accepted an offer from Elon Musk to buy the social media company and take it private, the company announced.
“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 press release. The world richest man said he was making Twitter better with new features, “making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans”. The deal was worth $44 billion at $54.20 per share.
A frequent user of the platform where he has 83.6 million followers, Musk is known for sharing jokes or posting important business announcements involving Tesla and SpaceX, sometimes even starting a SEC investigation.
Critics are concerned that Musk’s control over the platform will result in the silencing voices with whom he may disagree, given that he has blocked critics from his personal account.
After disclosing a large stake in Twitter earlier this month Musk offered to buy the company at $54.20 per share, his “best and final.” That offer valued Twitter at about $43 billion. Twitter’s board sought to fend off a hostile takeover by adopting a so-called poison pill but now a deal is finally done.
Twitter would become a private company on completion of the deal, which requires shareholder and regulatory approval.
