Elon Musk Has Officially Acquired Twitter for $44 Billion
Elon Musk has successfully acquired Twitter and is set to pay $54.20 per share in cash, or about $44 billion. He is now the proud owner of one of the biggest social media sites in the world and he is looking to put a focus on free speech.
Over the weekend, all parties involved with the acquisition met and talked about the offer that Musk had made, and in the end, Twitter’s board decided the ultimate valuation was too great to resist.
Twitter’s independent board chair said in the official announcement of the deal, “The Twitter board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”
Parag Agrawal, who took over as Twitter CEO several months ago after co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped away, said that he is “deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”
Musk said in a statement, “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.”
Wall Street appeared to initially hail the news, with Twitter shares up almost 6% heading toward the closing bell. They have risen almost 30% since Musk formally jumped on board.
This is pretty crazy, and one day I’m sure we’ll get a TV show or a movie showing us the behind the scenes story of Twitter and how it led to this massive deal. I’m curious to see how Twitter evolves from here.
I’m personally not the biggest fan of Twitter, and I only use it for professional purposes. For me personally and from my experiences, it’s never really been a friendly place.