Elon Musk, the CEO of huge companies like Tesla and Space X, founder of The Boring Company, and the richest person in the world, has successfully included another title to his bio - Owner of Twitter.
It was just announced on Monday that the blue bird app has now "entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk", as written in the company's press release.
The price is at $54.20 per share in cash, and the overall value of the transaction costs around $44 billion. Upon completion, which could still take several months, Twitter will officially become a privately held company, and its shares will no longer be allowed to be traded on any stock exchange.
Furthermore, the purchase price will constitute a 38% premium to Twitter's closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which happens to be the last trading day before Musk announced his 9% stake in Twitter.
Musk's takeover of the social media platform would mean that there is a likelihood that Twitter will no longer be governed by its current board and will no longer be publicly traded.
This announcement came to light a few months after Jack Dorsey left his post as CEO of Twitter after 16 years. He was eventually replaced by Parag Agrawal, former Chief Technical Officer (CTO) of Twitter.
Majority of the priorities of Twitter are centered on NFT integration and cryptocurrency, wherein the NFT profile support was enabled last January. Twitter has recently launched its edit button, which has been long requested by its users.
"The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon's proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing," said Twitter independent board chair Bret Taylor.
She added, "The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter's stockholders."
After the huge announcement, Twitter's stock increased by 6%.
"Bedrock of a functioning democracy"
Musk has claimed himself to be a free speech absolutist and has criticized Twitter's moderation. He said that Twitter's algorithm for prioritizing tweets must be public.
🚀💫♥️ Yesss!!! ♥️💫🚀 pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
He also wrote in a tweet that he was worried about what he claims as the "de facto bias" of Twitter's algorithm and its effect on public discourse. He asked his followers if the app's algorithm should be open source, majority of the respondents said "yes."
Musk stated that, "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 spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential - I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it," he added.
Musk follows a tradition of billionaires buying influential media platforms, such as Jeff Bezos taking over the Washington Post in 2013 and Rupert Murdoch acquiring the Wall Street Journal in 2007 and the New York Post in 1976.
Furthermore, Twitter said that Musk has amassed $25.5 billion of debt and margin loan financing and will provide a $21 billion equity commitment.
This article is owned by Tech Times
Written by Joaquin Victor Tacla
