Elon Musk has actually followed through and purchased one of the world’s largest social media platforms, Twitter.
The deal, announced today by Twitter, amounts to a USD $44 billion (AUD $61.4 billion) sale of the platform with more than 200 million users. It’s one of the largest tech takeovers in history.
Musk will now head the company as Chief Executive and has said that he has big plans for the site. Following the closure of this deal, Twitter will now become a private company and Musk has long said that he wants to ‘champion’ free speech on the platform.
🚀💫♥️ Yesss!!! ♥️💫🚀 pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
The sale comes as something of a shock, given that the Twitter board of directors was thought to be fighting off a takeover by the founder of Paypal, Tesla, and Space X.
Last week, Musk announced he had made an offer of USD $54.20 a share to stakeholders, well above the market rate for Twitter shares. He also revealed that he had already purchased 9% of the company, making him briefly one of the largest shareholders of Twitter.
Other stakeholders moved to counter his influence over the company, buying up more shares to fight off an attempted takeover. There was also suggestion they could adopt a ‘poison pill’ strategy, accessing shares for much lower price and undercutting Musk.
This all appears to have been cleared up as Musk secured loans to finance the deal and the Twitter board considered his offer over the weekend. The offer was the same one made on April 14 and the Twitter board accepted it unanimously on April 25.
Twitter is famously the villain of right-wing politicians and ideologues, particularly in the US, who view the platform as ‘silencing’ of right-wing voices. Twitter’s biggest move in this direction was the banning of former US President Donald Trump during his instigation of a coup on the US Capitol Building. Beyond this, however, there isn’t much evidence that Twitter has a political bias, as both those on the left and right of politics often criticise it of censorship.
Trump, who is currently building his own version of Twitter that will prioritise ‘free speech’, has said in an interview with FOX that he will not be returning to the platform.
Musk has said on Twitter that he hopes that even his “worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”
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