It’s official: Elon Musk has paid $44 billion for Twitter

Elon Musk, a billionaire, has taken control of Twitter in one of the biggest tech deals in history. Musk will pay approximately $44 billion for the social network, with shares valued at $54.20. On April 14, Musk announced his takeover bid, calling it his ‘best and final offer.’

“Free speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where important issues affecting humanity’s future are discussed.” I also want to make Twitter better than it has ever been by adding new features, opening up the algorithms to increase trust, defeating spam bots, and authenticating all humans.However, Twitter initially put in place a “poison pill defence” against the hostile takeover. However, after Musk announced that he had secured funding, the Tesla board entered into negotiations with the co-founder of the company. Musk met “privately with several shareholders of the company to extol the virtues of his proposal” on Friday, according to the Wall Street Journal, and also made video calls to them to press his case.

“I hope that even my harshest critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” Musk said earlier today on Twitter. It’s also worth noting that Musk sent out a rather obnoxious tweet about Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates on Saturday, ostensibly in response to Gates shorting Tesla. More than a million people have liked the tweet. He then joked that his tweet was being reviewed by the’shadow ban council.’

On the platform, he has been a staunch supporter of ‘free speech.’ “I invested in Twitter because I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk wrote in a filing to the US Securities and Exchange Commission. “Twitter has extraordinary potential,” he wrote in the filing. “I’ll get it unlocked.”

Musk has already floated the idea of privatising Twitter. “If our twitter bid succeeds, we will defeat the spam bots or die trying!” he tweeted recently. Then came another post in which he stated that all humans on the platform should be authenticated.

The Tesla co-founder has previously spoken about the need for a ‘Edit Button’ on the platform, and even held a poll in which he purposefully misspelt yes and no, presumably to emphasise the need for an edit button given the frequent typos that people make while tweeting. It’s worth noting that Twitter has already confirmed that an Edit button will be introduced.

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