Twitter has agreed $44 billion takeover deal with Elon Musk, the world’s wealthiest man.
The deal puts Musk, the CEO of Tesla, in charge of Twitter and an influential role in shaping the political and media agenda on both sides of the Atlantic. Twitter’s initial reluctance to accept a transaction appeared to fade after Musk confirmed he has a funding package in place for the deal and shareholders accepted it.
Musk has earlier signalled that the social media platform will be overhauled under his leadership, as such, there will be changes in content moderation. The signal came after he described himself as a “free speech absolutist”.
The deal came after dramatic weeks of speculation about the future of Twitter which was triggered by Musk’s emergence as the largest single shareholder of the platform on April 4.
That was followed up with his declaration of a $43bn takeover bid on April 14, which prompted the board of Twitter to signal its displeasure at his moves by adopting a poison pill defence on April 15.
However, the opposition of Twitter’s board became a thing of the past after Musk tabled a $46.5bn funding package for the bid.
According to reports, Twitter’s shareholders and its board started to take the offer seriously the moment Musk put finance in place.
As expected, the deal will not encounter serious scrutiny from US competition authorities as Musk’s major business interests (an electric car company, the SpaceX rocket business and tunnelling firm The Boring Company) are not competing with Twitter.
