Elon Musk announced his complete acquisition of Twitter on Thursday 27th October, 2022 after a series of agreements and court battles between Twitter and the Tesla boss. “On Thursday night, Mr. Musk closed his $44 billion deal to buy social media services, said three people with knowledge of the situation” read an article published by New York Times.
The article also revealed that Elon Musk began by cleaning the house through firing top company executives including the Financial officer and the Chief Executive Officer.
In another article published by BBC, it confirmed that the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has completed his $44bn ( $38.1bn) take over of Twitter according to a filing with US government.
Musk has been keenly interested in buying Twitter since April 2022 when he first announced that he had acquired 9.2% of Twitter’s Stock valued at $2.64 billions, making him the largest shareholder in the company. With Elon Musks announcement of acquiring such shares, Twitter’s stock trade rose by 27% which prompted the management at Twitter to invite Musk join the company’s board.
On 11th April, 2022, when Musk was supposed to be officially appointed to the Board, he declined the appointment which he had initially accepted having ran a series of tweets against the company and expressed his intention to completely take over the company. This threw the entire company in panic as they convened a board meeting consisting of lawyers and financial advisors to map possible ramifications and options in response to Musk’s behavior. Twitter’s shareholder, Marc Bain Rasella sued Musk for allegedly manipulating the company’s stock prices and violating the rules of Securities and Exchange Commission.
In July, the relationship between Twitter bosses and Musk had worsened as Musk announced his intention to terminate their agreement citing the inability by Twitter to bring down ghost and spambot accounts. A series of court battles have been running in Delaware Court of Chancery. On 4th October, 2022, Musk expressed his interest to still acquire Twitter when the court battles were still running with the next by then set for 17th October, 2022. On Friday 28th, October, 2022, Elon Musk official became the new owner of Twitter.
“Twitter will be forming content moderation council with widely diverse view-points. No major content decisions or account reinstatement will happen before that concil convenes” writes Elon Musk on his official Twitter handle. He further stated that comedy is officially legal on Twitter.
The process of full transaction and acquisition of Twitter began on 14th April, 2022 and was concluded on 27th October, 2022 covering a lump sum cost of $44 Billions.
Musk released a statement addressed to Advertisers expressing his reasons and motivation for acquiring Twitter in contrast to what the public has always had from different sources. He said it was time for him to clear all the disinformation.
“ The reason I acquired Twitter is because it is important for future civilization to have a common digital town square, where a wide range of beliefs can be debated in a health manner, without resorting to violence. There is currently great danger that social media will splint into far right wing and far left wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society” read the statement issued by Elon Musk explaining reasons for Twitter acquisition.
“This is why I bought Twitter. I didn’t do it because it would be easy. I didn’t do it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love. And I do so with humility, recognizing that failure in pursuing this goal, despite our best efforts, it is a very real possibility,” said Musk.
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