Elon Musk became the owner of Twitter, disbursing for the social network a sum that is around $44 billionas confirmed on Monday afternoon by the company itself.
The final deal implies a price per share of $54.20 in cash, “in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion. Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a private company,” the social network said in a statement. .
The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Musk disclosed his roughly 9% stake in Twitter. according to the official communication.
Twitter’s board “conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to evaluate Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty and funding. The proposed transaction will generate a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for shareholders.” of the company, said the president of the board of directors of Twitter, Bret Taylor.
“Freedom of expression is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital public square where issues vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said. “I also want Twitter to be better than ever by improving the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating spam bots, and authenticating all humans.”. Twitter has enormous potential. I look forward to working with the company. and the user community to unlock it.”
The transaction is expected to close in 2022, subject to Twitter shareholder approval, receipt of applicable regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions, the Board of Directors document said.
Elon Musk’s arguments
According to the interest expressed in recent weeks by the South African billionaire, his goal with this purchase is to “guarantee the freedom of expression of the platform.” That is why he carried out a process that was completed on Monday, after a meeting with the representatives of the shareholders.
Although the swings between Musk and Twitter date back a long time, the official path was finalized in early April when the founder of Tesla bought 9.2% of the shares of the social network, an action that made him the largest single shareholder of the company. A week later, the 50-year-old billionaire went a step further by submitting an offer to buy 100% of Twitter for $43 billion, claiming it was his “last and best offer” and promising changes to the platform.
“I invested in Twitter because I believe in its potential to be the platform for freedom of expression around the world. And I believe that freedom of expression is a social imperative for a functioning democracy”described the businessman. However, he added that since he made his investment, he can now see that “the company will not thrive and meet this social imperative in its current form,” so he stated, “Twitter must become a private company“.
With 83 million followers, Musk uses his account for multiple purposes: he conducts surveys about what users are looking for from the social network, such as the edit button; He announces promises and changes, such as going after spam bots and guaranteeing freedom of expression, even sharing memes like his recent comparison between Bill Gates and the emoji of a pregnant person.
I made an offer https://t.co/VvreuPMeLu
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2022
Another of the proposals outlined by Musk in his tweets speaks of the social network depending less on advertising, and more on a subscription model.
