Twitter agrees with Elon Musk: Tech billionaire can buy platform

Created: 04/26/2022, 05:32

By: Bettina Menzel

Elon Musk announced on April 4 that he held a good nine percent stake in Twitter.

© Patrick Pleul/dpa-Zentralbild POOL/dpa

Twitter and Elon Musk have reportedly agreed on a deal.

Accordingly, the tech billionaire can now take over the short message service.

San Francisco - Twitter has given up its opposition to a takeover by tech billionaire Elon Musk.

The online service announced on Monday that it had reached a deal with Musk.

Twitter will then be taken off the stock market.

Tech billionaire takes over Twitter: This is known about the deal

The currently richest person in the world, Elon Musk, buys the short message service Twitter for around 44 billion dollars (almost 41 billion euros).

Twitter announced on Monday a "definitive agreement" for Musk to acquire the online service.

The founder of the electric car manufacturer Tesla and the aerospace company SpaceX will therefore pay $ 54.20 per Twitter share.

As a result, Twitter should then be taken off the stock exchange.

This gives Musk control of the social media group.

Since the tech billionaire's fortune is mostly Tesla and SpaceX stock, Musk also had to resort to borrowing to make the purchase.

Accordingly, he is said to have submitted commitments for loans of over 25.5 billion US dollars to the Twitter board on Sunday.

Additionally, he raised approximately $21 billion worth of stock.

Numerous employees told the

that they were initially left in the dark about what specific changes a sale of the company to Musk would bring.

Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal - successor to company founder Jack Dorsey - is said to have called a meeting with his employees for Monday afternoon, in which further details about the future of the company are to be disclosed.

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Board of Directors drops resistance - Elon Musk reacts to criticism

Last week, Twitter's board of directors tried to prevent a takeover by the tech billionaire.

Numerous executives had also expressed their criticism.

Musk said he wants to make Twitter "better than it's ever been."

To this end, he wants to offer new functions that make the algorithms of the short message service public in order to “increase trust” and “defeat” so-called spam bots.

After the takeover became known, Twitter shares were quoted at the $52 mark in New York on Monday - so investors still have slight doubts.

According to media reports, important shareholders are the bank Morgan Stanley with a good eight percent of the shares, the investment company Vanguard Group is said to hold around ten percent.

The billionaire is a frequent Twitter user himself and has around 83 million followers.

He announced his intention to make Twitter a "global platform for free speech".

After the deal on Monday, he promptly expressed himself on the short message service.

"I hope even my biggest critics stay on Twitter because that's what free speech is all about," Musk wrote.

Musk announced in mid-April that he wanted to completely take over Twitter.

The 50-year-old had previously bought just over nine percent of the shares, making him the largest shareholder in Twitter.

The question of how exactly Musk will change the company remains open.

It remains to be seen whether he might also consider renaming Twitter and choose a similarly creative name for the messenger service as for his son

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