(The Hill) — Twitter on Monday reached an agreement to sell itself to Elon Musk, leaving one of the world’s richest men in control over one of the most influential social media platforms.
The price per share agreed in Monday’s deal is higher than the roughly $48 that the company was trading at before Musk first announced his stake, but significantly lower than the $70 shares were trading at last year.
Musk has said that he views the acquisition of Twitter as a way to protect free speech, declaring during a conference earlier this month that the offer was “not a way to sort of make money.”
He’s been less clear about what about Twitter’s current operations are inhibiting free speech or how his leadership might facilitate dialogue. Efforts by alternative social media to be absolutist about free speech have suffered in the past when confronted with the reality that some content moderation is needed to make platforms useable.
Musk first offered to buy all outstanding shares of the company at $54.20 a share on April 14.
The deal was met with some skepticism over how the Tesla CEO would secure the $46.5 billion in funding needed to complete the deal.
Twitter’s board responded to the offer by adopting a so-called “poison pill” to prevent Musk from accumulating more than 15 percent of the company’s stock. Musk announced earlier this month that he had quietly acquired 9.2 percent of shares.
But after Musk revealed he had obtained commitments to finance the deal, according to multiple reports, Twitter’s board began negotiating the deal in earnest.
Musk has not publicly commented on whether he would restore the account of former President Trump, who was permanently banned shortly after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the Capitol, but his comments about free speech have stoked speculation that doing so may be a possibility.
The Tesla CEO has been more vocal on other potential changes, including adding an edit button. Twitter recently announced it was studying an edit option.
He has also said he wants to make the company’s algorithms public, sharing access to code showing what posts are promoted or emoted.
Source: Fox 8 News Channel
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