Elon Musk acquires Twitter for $44 billion.
Billionaire Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter.
As part of one of the largest deals in the technology world billionaire Elon Musk has acquired control of Twitter. The deal will result in Musk purchase the social network in the amount of $44 billion and shares worth $54.20. Musk had made an announcement about his takeover offer on April 14 calling the offer his “best and final offer’.”
Free speech constitutes the core of a healthy democracy which is why Twitter is the online town square where issues that are crucial to the future of humanity are discussed. I’m also determined to improve Twitter more efficient than ever before by improving the service with new options, making the algorithms open source, thereby increasing confidence, eliminating spambots, and authenticating every human. Twitter is a huge opportunity – I am looking being a part of the team and its group of people who use it to realize it.” Musk said in a press release posted to his Twitter account after the deal was approved.
The initial reaction to his offer was Twitter set up a “poison pill defense’ to stop taking over by a hostile company. However, when Musk announced that he’d obtained financing and the board entered into talks with Musk, who is the Tesla co-founders. According to the Wall Street Journal, on Friday, Musk met “privately with some members of the firm to praise the benefits of his plan” and also conducted video calls to them to make his argument.
Today, Musk had posted on his Twitter accountthat “I would like to see even my most vile critics stay on Twitter as that’s the definition of free speech.” It should be pointed out that the weekend, Musk had posted a quite offensive tweet about Microsoft Co-Founder Bill Gates, apparently in reaction to Gates selling Tesla’s stock. The tweet has over one million followers. The tweet was then a joke that the “shadow ban council’ might be scrutinizing his tweet.
Musk has been a staunch supporter of free speech on Twitter. In his filing with the US SEC, Musk wrote, “I invested in Twitter because I believe it has the potential to become the place for freedom of speech across the world, and I believe that freedom of speech is a fundamental right of the society to ensure an effective democratic society.” Musk also stated in his disclosure “Twitter is a platform with incredible potential. I’ll make it accessible.”Musk has previously announced plans to make Twitter the platform offline. He also tweeted, “If our twitter bid is successful, we will beat the bots that spam our platform or lose trying!” followed by another tweet that said he’d prefer that all people on the platform to be authenticated. He repeated this in his press release after the announcement of the deal.
Tesla’s Tesla Co-Founder has talked previously about the “Edit Button’ for the platform, and even ran a poll in which he intentionally spelled no and the word “no. Perhaps this was done to show the fact that an edit button is necessary due to the errors users tend to make when tweeting. It’s important to note that Twitter has already stated that it will be introducing an Edit button, but when it announced the change, they claimed it was not to do with the poll.
