Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants the world to know change is coming to Twitter.
In April, Twitter said it reached a deal with Musk, who will …
Tesla CEO Elon Musk wants the world to know change is coming to Twitter. In April, Twitter said it reached a deal with Musk, who will buy Twitter for $54.20 a share in cash, valuing the influential social media site at about $44 billion. The announcement came after Musk rejected a seat on Twitter’s board. With a 9.2% stake in Twitter, Musk is one of the company’s largest shareholders and will reportedly become temporary CEO once the deal closes, CNBC reported this month, citing anonymous sources. There are still questions lingering about whether Musk will back out of the deal. The billionaire said the deal is temporarily « on hold » because he wants more details about the number of spam bots and fake accounts on the social network. He’s asked Twitter to provide proof that less than 5% of its users are actually fake or spam accounts. Twitter, on the other hand, says the deal isn’t on hold and it doesn’t plan to lower the sales price. This week, Musk revealed in a new filing that he’s personally committing $33.5 billion to the deal, a sign that it could be moving forward. Twitter shareholders are expected to vote on the deal at a special meeting, though the company hasn’t yet announced a date for that. The deal with Musk has also fueled speculation about what this could mean for the social media site’s future. The sale initially seemed unlikely, but Twitter’s board then reportedly began to take the offer more seriously after Musk revealed more details about how he would finance the potential purchase.
« 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 », Musk said in a statement. « I also want to make Twitter 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. Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it. »
Like other Twitter users, Musk hasn’t been shy about sharing thoughts on what needs to be fixed on the site, tweeting his frank remarks to his 95 million followers. (Musk has more social media clout, as measured by followers, than Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey combined.) Those tweets provide insight into his love-hate relationship with Twitter. Dorsey, a well-known figure in the tech industry, has expressed admiration for how Musk uses Twitter, noting that the mogul shares « his thinking openly » on the site. But Musk’s candor has also landed him in hot water. In 2018, the US Securities and Exchange Commission sued Musk for allegedly violating securities law after he tweeted that he had « funding secured » to take Tesla private. The SEC and Musk reached a settlement that required some of his tweets be preapproved, though his lawyers are trying to end that agreement.
