Twitter has accepted tech entrepreneur and billionaire Elon Musk's bid to buy the company for $44 billion.
Twitter announced that Musk purchased Twitter at $54.20 a share, the same price named in his initial offer on 14 April 2022. In a press release on Monday, Musk said he wants to make the social network better than ever by "enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans".
Musk also outlined his plan for funding the deal in an SEC filing last week, specifying $25.5 billion in loans and $21 billion in personal equity.
It's still unclear what changes Musk will implement at Twitter. When Musk first offered to buy Twitter earlier this month, he disclosed that he bought a 9.2 per cent stake in the company, making him Twitter's largest individual shareholder at the time. Then, after disclosing his stake, he polled Twitter users about an "edit" button, but Twitter was already developing such a feature.
Yesss!!! pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6
â€" Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
Musk has also been critical of Twitter moderation. During TED 2022, he said he believed "civilizational risk is decreased the more we can increase the trust of Twitter as a public platform". And in his statement on Monday, Musk noted: "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".
However, despite concerns about the direction Twitter will take now, Twitter's CEO, Parag Agrawal, praised the deal in the release. "Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world", Agrawal said. "Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important".
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