What does it take for the world’s richest person to buy the thing he loves? The answer would probably be $44 billion after the richest person on the planet, Elon Musk struck a deal to buy the 16-year-old micro-blogging social media platform – Twitter for $44 billion cash.
Before reaching the agreement with the Twitter board in one of the tech world’s biggest deals, Elon Musk – an advocate of “free speech” on Twitter said, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” in a tweet. In a statement, Musk said that “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning dem and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”
According to the statement, the $44 billion deal is likely to be concluded later this year. The deal will see the shares valued at $54.2, which means that every investor in the company will receive $54.2 for every single share they own – a total of 38 per cent more than the April 1 closing stock. April 1 was the day when Elon Musk revealed his significant stake in Twitter. Elon Musk has secured $25.5 billion of debt and margin loan financing under his deal with the company.
On April 14, Elon Musk came out to declare his takeover bid calling it to be his ‘best and final offer.’
In several instances, Elon Musk was seen taking to Twitter to point out his dislikes towards some of the features of this 2006-born company. Recently, Musk deliberately misspelled yes and no in his Twitter poll to ask the users about the need for an ‘edit button’ feature on the platform.
In one of his recent tweets, Musk said that “If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!” followed by a thread saying, “And authenticate all real humans.”
Meanwhile, Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal took to Twitter and said, “Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”
