He actually did it. Tesla boss Elon Musk, who is also the richest man in the world, has bought the short message service Twitter and thus put his announcement in practice. Twitter is then to be taken off the stock exchange, also an extensive restructuring is in the room.
Elon Musk buys Twitter
That went fast. After Musk had made Twitter an offer to take over on April 14, the exchange news service has now agreed to it. The announced on Monday. One had agreed a “definitive agreement” to the full takeover.
Tesla CEO Musk is buying the remaining shares for $54.20 per share, having already bought 9.2 percent of the company since recently. Thus, the total value of the transaction amounts to about 44 billion US dollars.
Twitter is then to be delisted from the stock exchange. Now only the shareholders have to decide whether they want to accept Musk’s offer. The so-called poison pill, with which the company wanted to defend itself against the takeover, remained unsuccessful, according to the report.
Focus on free speech
Musk wants to push free expression on Twitter. This saw the billionaire already threatened for some time and could come into additional focus after the takeover. “I hope that even my biggest critics stay on Twitter because it is what free expression means,” writes the South African on the short message service.
With around 84 million followers, Musk is one of the most popular and at the same time most active Twitter users. In addition, he wants to “make Twitter better than ever before”. To that end, new features will be introduced and the algorithm will be turned into open-source code to“increase trust, fight spam bots and authenticate all people,” Musk further writes.
Twitter board chairman Bret Taylor, along with his board, sees Elon Musk’s acquisition as the best path forward for shareholders. Together, he said, they approved the acquisition after “careful and comprehensive reviews”.
If shareholders now approve, there is nothing standing in the way of the Twitter purchase. Then it could go very quickly with the first restructuring. Among other things, Musk already wanted to add an edit button for messages.