If you have spent any time on Twitter today, you may have noticed that Elon Musk has bought the platform. This news was posted in a press release titled: “Elon Musk to Acquire Twitter”.
From the press release:
Twitter Inc., today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion. Upon completing of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately held company.
Under the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own upon closing of the proposed transaction. The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Mr. Musk disclosed his approximately 9% stake in Twitter.
The press release also includes a quote from Elon Musk: “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,” said Mr. Musk. “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.”
CNBC reported that Twitter would become a private company on completion of the deal, which requires shareholder and regulatory approval.
CNBC also reported: Assuming the deal closes and Musk takes ownership of Twitter, the company will be controlled by the world’s richest person and someone who’s been a heavy critic of the platform while using it in legally contentious ways, mostly through sensitive posts about his car manufacturer, Tesla.
In addition, CNBC reported: Though Musk has indicated that his primary interest in Twitter has to do with what he views as the company’s censorship of free speech, Musk critics are concerned that the billionaire’s control over the platform will result in the silencing of voices and others with whom he may disagree, given that he’s often blocked critics from his personal account.
I spent some time on Twitter reading tweets about Musk’s buyout. A few people announced that they would be leaving Twitter (with some wanting to delete their tweets first). Many people posted tweets indicating that they believed that there would soon be no moderating of Twitter whatsoever. Some of that group decided to make snarky tweets about people who don’t match their own, personal, political views.
As for me, I’m going to wait and see what happens.