The world's richest man, Elon Musk, counts Tesla, SpaceX, and now Twitter among his business ventures after the social media company's board reversed its previous position to accept the tech innovator's offer to purchase the company at $54.20 per share.
Just before 3:00 p.m. ET, shares were halted and shortly thereafter, the completed deal was announced in a press release from Twitter:
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 completion 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.
Twitter Board Chair Bret Taylor said that the directors "conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon's proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing" and noted they "believe it is the best path forward for Twitter's stockholders."
Musk reiterated his earlier comments about Twitter in a statement included in the release saying, "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. 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," Musk added.
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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. https://t.co/5iNTtJoEHf
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 25, 2022
Twitter's release says the deal is expected to close yet this year "subject to the approval of Twitter stockholders, the receipt of applicable regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions."
Before the deal was confirmed by Twitter, Musk restated his commitment to making Twitter a freer platform for users' speech — even those who have vehemently opposed his hostile takeover — as news broke that the negotiations were reaching their final stage on Monday morning.
I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
Back in mid-March, Musk snapped up 9.2 percent of Twitter's stock, becoming the company's largest shareholder and drawing significant attention from Twitter's CEO Parag Agrawal who offered Musk a seat on the company's board. After hinting that he would join the board as part of an agreement that would limit Musk from acquiring more than 14.9 percent of Twitter stock, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX rejected the board seat.
Then, on April 14, Musk launched his hostile takeover attempt, issuing a cash offer to buy Twitter outright for some $43 billion. That "best and final" offer from Musk caused lib twitter and the mainstream media — though there's little difference between those groups — to hit a DEFCON 1 meltdown over the apparently horrific risk that Twitter might become a true free speech platform.
The board adopted a "poison pill" to try and dissuade Musk from moving forward with his takeover plan, but then they changed their tune.
Conservatives, who've long suffered under Twitter's liberal-favoring policy enforcement, were bullish on Monday's news while liberals continued their breathless and now-pointless screeching. Among the questions that come next: Will former President Donald Trump return to Twitter? Will Musk make Twitter's internal policy enforcement systems or algorithm public? Will users finally get an "edit" button? Will all the liberals threatening to quit the platform (#LeavingTwitter trended at the time of writing) actually follow through?
Alas, much like all the "I'm moving to Canada" threats over GOP victories, Twitter libs are unlikely to stay gone for long.
The left wing blue check brigade members losing their minds on here over Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter are doing this because he’s going to bring true free speech to this platform. They’ve been playing with a rigged algorithm and know their gig is about to be up. Glorious.
— Clay Travis (@ClayTravis) April 25, 2022
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