Tesla CEO Elon Musk strikes the deal of the year to buy Twitter for around $44 billion.
- Earlier this month, Tesla CEO Elon Musk had offered to buy 100% of Twitter to ‘unlock its extraordinary potential’. Elon has stated that he wants to buy and privatize Twitter because he believes it is not living up to its potential as a free expression medium.
- It remains to be seen whether it will really boost the free speech as claimed by Elon Musk who has been leveraging the social media platform to promotes his interests, attacks critics and opines on a wide range of issues to more than 83 million followers.
- Musk said in a joint statement with Twitter that he wants to make the service “better than ever” with new features including eliminating automated “spam” accounts and making the service’s algorithms transparent to the public to boost confidence.
- “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,” Elon Musk said in a tweet related to the announcement.
- The agreement was reached just two weeks after the billionaire revealed he had a 9% share in the company. Musk announced last week that he had secured $46.5 billion in funding to purchase Twitter, putting pressure on the board of directors to reach an agreement.
- The deal was unanimously authorised by Twitter’s board of directors, and it is likely to close in 2022, pending regulatory approval and shareholder approval.
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