Elon Musk to Buy Twitter for $44 Billion

It’s official: Twitter announced today that it has agreed to a sale to billionaire Elon Musk for about $44 billion. Musk will take the firm private.

“The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing,” Twitter board chair Bret Taylor said. “The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”

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“Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world,” Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal added. “Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”

Twitter shareholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own, and that price represents a 38 percent premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, 2022.

Musk has been pretty vocal about free speech issues on Twitter, and despite widespread criticism of his understanding of this term, he has perhaps not surprisingly decided to address that issue in the announcement post.

“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,” Mr. Musk said. “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.”

The deal is expected to conclude by the end of 2022, assuming it is approved by Twitter stockholders and regulators.

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Conversation 43 comments

  • will

    Premium Member
    25 April, 2022 - 4:04 pm

    <p>I agree with the statement that there is a lot of potential in twitter. One of the few social media companies that can go head to head with Meta. </p>

  • lvthunder

    Premium Member
    25 April, 2022 - 4:04 pm

    <p>I hope he does good things with it.</p><p><br></p><p>The first thing I would do is require every user to be verified. That way if you say something illegal a lawyer/prosecutor can get that information to file a lawsuit or arrest someone. That is how you do free speech and make it closest to the town square.</p>

    • Donte

      25 April, 2022 - 4:09 pm

      <p>I think that would help for sure but honestly people on twitter say horrible things every day and they do not hide who they are.</p>

      • lvthunder

        Premium Member
        25 April, 2022 - 4:48 pm

        <p>People say horrible things all the time in person as well. It’s all part of free speech though.</p>

        • Swiftnc

          Premium Member
          25 April, 2022 - 10:20 pm

          <p>Agree. Verifying user identity will cut down on bot spam, as well as allow people to speak freely, however without the feeling nothing they say matters because it is "anonymous". Also make a simple click to get the full user real name, city, state/country.</p>

    • SherlockHolmes

      Premium Member
      25 April, 2022 - 4:36 pm

      <p>You only need to look over to his Giga-factory in Brandenburg/Germany. Then you know how this will go. </p>

    • CasualAdventurer

      26 April, 2022 - 9:49 am

      <p>Serious question because I’m confused by your statement. How can someone say something illegal and be prosecuted for it and that be the right way to do free speech? Would love to know your thoughts.</p>

  • dougkinzinger

    25 April, 2022 - 4:10 pm

    <p>Good for Elon, good for Twitter (and their shareholders), and by golly it’s good for ‘Murica! :D</p>

  • matsan

    25 April, 2022 - 4:14 pm

    <p>Hopefully his first and only action will be to close it down.</p>

  • vladimir

    Premium Member
    25 April, 2022 - 4:19 pm

    <p>I just can’t understand this move. Probably that’s why I’m no billionaire (or millionaire)</p>

  • MarkPow

    Premium Member
    25 April, 2022 - 4:22 pm

    <p>This is a miracle for Twitter shareholders but what a waste of money.</p>

  • SherlockHolmes

    Premium Member
    25 April, 2022 - 4:26 pm

    <p>Time to leave Twitter. </p>

    • Bart

      Premium Member
      25 April, 2022 - 4:49 pm

      <p>Mastodon?</p>

      • SherlockHolmes

        Premium Member
        26 April, 2022 - 5:50 am

        <p>Maybe. But problem is nobody knows about Mastodon or uses it. I just found out about Mastodon inlights of the Twitter takeover. </p>

  • Bart

    Premium Member
    25 April, 2022 - 4:48 pm

    <p>I am not convinced the sale will go through. Share price hasn’t hit the $54,50 today either.</p>

    • lvthunder

      Premium Member
      25 April, 2022 - 4:49 pm

      <p>Who’s going to stop it?</p>

      • rmlounsbury

        Premium Member
        25 April, 2022 - 6:50 pm

        <p>The SEC for one.</p>

        • DBSync

          26 April, 2022 - 10:08 am

          <p>What legal basis could the SEC use?</p>

    • rmlounsbury

      Premium Member
      25 April, 2022 - 6:30 pm

      <p>It doesn’t matter that Twitter isn’t trading for the price that Musk has offered. It is a hostile takeover of Twitter because Musk is overvaluing Twitter in his offer making it an offer the board can’t refuse based on their fiduciary commitment to bring value to the stock holders. </p>

  • wolters

    Premium Member
    25 April, 2022 - 5:23 pm

    <p>I am finding out, totally by random chance, that I like Twitter more than Facebook…let’s hope it will continue to be a good platform…</p>

  • John Craig

    25 April, 2022 - 5:53 pm

    <p>But why? What does he want it for? It’s just a trolling site full of bullies, liars and narcissistic celebr… Oh wait nevermind</p>

  • rmlounsbury

    Premium Member
    25 April, 2022 - 6:28 pm

    <p>Apparently I’m one of the few that believes Musk is a goon and will be a disservice to Twitter and not add any value to the platform. Twitter is a social platform that has been critical to movements in the past and it shouldn’t be bolden to shareholders or a singular ridiculously rich child.</p><p><br></p><p>I do not see anything good of Musk becoming the owner of Twitter and (likely) taking it private. </p>

    • Craig Smith

      25 April, 2022 - 7:20 pm

      <p>Musk is a massive goon and a con artist. He’s buying Twitter because he thinks, if he owns it, he’ll be free to post any nonsense he wants to.</p>

      • CasualAdventurer

        26 April, 2022 - 9:46 am

        <p>And you know this how? </p>

        • egab

          26 April, 2022 - 7:19 pm

          <p>Just see his past behaviour. He has more class than Trump, but both are toddlers going into tantrums when not getting what they want. He just bought Twitter because they didn’t follow his rules. Couldn’t care less about "free speech".</p>

          • bbennett40

            27 April, 2022 - 9:02 am

            <p>The only tantrums I see are once like yours.</p>

            • egab

              27 April, 2022 - 1:36 pm

              <p>That doesn’t even make sense, do you know what a tantrum is? 🙂 </p><p>I lost all respect to this guy during the pandemic and his stock/crypto market plays. People are just blinded because he’s rich and a player, and Tesla is a trendy car.</p>

  • owenm

    Premium Member
    25 April, 2022 - 6:41 pm

    <p>Billionaire Man-child, desperate to make people like him, buys a social media company. I can’t see anything good come from this purchase. </p>

    • CasualAdventurer

      26 April, 2022 - 9:45 am

      <p>Strip the personal attacks from your statement and you’ve said nothing. Why should your opinion of the man matter to anyone? <span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">Do you know Musk personally? Did you feel this way when Jeff Bezos bought the Washington Post? Some advice: Think before you post.</span></p>

      • Thretosix

        26 April, 2022 - 1:35 pm

        <p>Washington Post and Twitter are like apples and oranges.</p>

      • owenm

        Premium Member
        27 April, 2022 - 12:02 am

        <p>Nothing about that statement is either ‘personal’ or an ‘attack’, but I did make errors; I left out the words ‘Narcissist’ and ‘Oligarch'</p>

    • Markld

      Premium Member
      27 April, 2022 - 1:55 pm

      <p>Actually I don’t think he cares all that much about people liking him or not liking him. Think this purchase of Twitter has something more to do with his values and principles. </p><p>I can think of better ways to spend 44B to get people to like you. </p><p>Also, with all the sheer meltdown from folks that think he is going to ruin things, it wouldn’t have happened, if he cares about people liking him. </p><p>We shall see over time what his purchase of Twitter does, his purchase has changed my mind a little about Twitter, as before, if I woke up one day and it was gone I could care less. We shall see. </p><p><br></p>

  • north of 49th

    Premium Member
    25 April, 2022 - 6:50 pm

    <p>I find myself envying Europe’s Digital Services Act with this news. I expect fines for non-compliance to bring in a lot of revenue for EU countries.</p>

    • red.radar

      Premium Member
      26 April, 2022 - 8:20 am

      <p>Not so sure… he has stated that he wants to make the workings of the algorithms transparent which aligns with the DSA. He may not be at odds with the EU and if the goals are aligned he could make powerful allies in this space and gain market share from other networks.</p><p><br></p><p><br></p>

  • darkgrayknight

    Premium Member
    25 April, 2022 - 7:20 pm

    <p>Maybe Twitter can now become something better and have the toxic sludge and dumpster fires removed. Twitter stopped being innovative a few years ago and really needs some overhauling: Elon is probably about as good a chance as anyone else to clean it up.</p>

    • Daishi

      Premium Member
      25 April, 2022 - 7:53 pm

      <p>Except that his stated objective is to stop removing what little of the toxic sludge and dumpster fires they have been cleaning up. I can’t see any way that that makes the platform better</p>

      • red.radar

        Premium Member
        25 April, 2022 - 8:05 pm

        <p>Perhaps this works and it becomes a model in how to clean up social media. Maybe it is as simple as open sourcing the algorithms to build trust and making sure people are verified so people have to put real reputation on the line when making statements. </p><p><br></p><p>Well see if it works… </p>

  • Daekar

    25 April, 2022 - 10:09 pm

    <p>There is now a chance that Twitter will be something other than an echo chamber of nastiness. Will keep my fingers crossed. </p>

  • eric_rasmussen

    Premium Member
    26 April, 2022 - 12:48 am

    <p>Twitter is a cesspool, the worst expression of what social media does to a society. I hope he can turn that around somehow.</p>

    • Markld

      Premium Member
      27 April, 2022 - 1:56 pm

      <p>Agree with you </p>

  • navarac

    26 April, 2022 - 3:24 am

    <p>I think I could find better things to spend that amount of money on, than a one of many "toxic" social media sites.</p>

  • lightbody

    26 April, 2022 - 9:19 am

    <p>The #1 reason I use and love Twitter, is the "latest tweets" feed, which isn’t controlled by an algorithm. Its just a clean list of tweets from people you follow, in chronological order. If they remove that, I’m gone.</p>

    • bbennett40

      27 April, 2022 - 9:07 am

      <p>I don’t use Twitter much at all, but I agree with your point. Issues arose when these companies took it upon themselves to start feeding you information and promoting certain stories while demoting others, coloring the information received by their users with their own opinions. They have moved beyond their original purpose of being simply a platform. IMHO</p>

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