The Tesla and SpaceX CEO and the social media firm unveiled the deal on Monday, with the company accepting a deal that values it at about $44 billion.
Once completed, the richest person in the world will own arguably the most influential social platform in the world, though from a business and user standpoint Twitter is significantly smaller than companies like Facebook or TikTok.
The official press release from the Twitter board reads;
“The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing,” said the company’s independent board chair Bret Taylor, in a statement announcing the deal. “The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”
Elon Musk said at a conference that he made the offer to buy Twitter because it had “become kind of the de facto town square, so it is just really important that people have the reality and the perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law.”
He added: “This is not a way to make money, my strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization, I don’t care about the economics at all.”
Musk added in a statement Monday 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,” he added. “Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
Now, when the deal closes, he will have to make his admittedly vague ambition a reality and square it with a difficult regulatory environment, not to mention human nature.
The move caps off what has been a volatile and unpredictable few weeks for the company, with the odds of a purchase changing almost daily.
Credit: Hollywoodreporter