Wuhu Express
$44 billion acquisition! Twitter into Musk's private company!
On April 25, local time, Twitter said that SpaceX and Tesla founder Musk reached an agreement to acquire Twitter, which will acquire Twitter at a price of $54.2 per share, and the transaction will be completed for $44 billion.
The deal is expected to close within 2022, and upon completion of the deal, Twitter will become a privately held company.
As soon as the news came out, Twitter's stock price rose 6% in response, hitting a new high since November 16, 2021!
In addition, Twitter's source code has been locked to make it harder for employees to make unauthorized changes to the platform. Twitter employees added a public repository called "Algorithms" on the platform's Github account shortly before the source code was locked.
Musk said in a statement: "I also want twitter to be better than ever, to enhance the product by adding new features, to make the algorithm open source to increase trust, and to authenticate everyone." I look forward to unleashing its potential. ”
Heavy users Musk vs Twitter
Previously, on April 14, Tesla CEO Elon Musk proposed to buy Twitter in cash at a price of $54.20 per share. The price is a 54 percent premium to Twitter's closing price on Jan. 28, and the acquisition will be worth more than $43 billion, or about 274 billion yuan.
Twitter said it received an offer from the world's richest man and would scrutinize the acquisition proposal.
Musk said the latest offer was his "best and final offer" and said he would have to reconsider whether to give up his additional 9 percent stake if Twitter didn't accept it.
Musk revealed that he has been buying Twitter stock since the end of January this year, and according to information disclosed by the company at the time, he has spent $2.6 billion to increase his holding of 73.1 million shares, accounting for more than 9% of the shares.
In a letter to Twitter, Musk wrote: "Since I made my investment, I have realized that the company will neither thrive nor serve the needs of society well in its current form unless it is transformed into a private company." ”
According to Twitter's full-year 2021 financial report released in February this year, revenue was $5.08 billion, up 37% year-on-year, and the net loss still reached $221 million, although it narrowed significantly from the 2020 loss of $1.14 billion.
In addition, Twitter's total advertising engagements in the fourth quarter of last year fell by 12% year-on-year due to the difficulty of attracting user clicks, which may be affected by the platform's privacy protection of personal information.
Musk believes that taking businesses private could reduce regulatory oversight of their operations. At one point he made comments on Twitter about taking Tesla private, and was punished by regulators for it.
Twitter is the most active "front" for Musk to make remarks. Musk has more than 80 million followers on Twitter, far more than the CEO of any other company. He had previously criticized the social media platform and its policies, and said on Twitter that he was seriously considering creating a new one.
Because Twitter is undermining democracy by not respecting the principles of free speech.
TRUMP: I'm not going back to Twitter
After the Capitol Hill riots on January 6, 2021, several social media platforms, including Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, permanently banned Trump's account. Twitter pointed out at the time that the reason for Trump's deletion was that the tweets he posted violated the platform's policy against promoting violence and could push people to repeat the attack on Capitol Hill.
When Trump was banned, he already had more than 88 million followers on Twitter. Since then, Trump has tried to create a platform that can compete with Twitter and announced his own social networking platform, "TRUTH Social", but the platform encountered great difficulties when it launched, and it seems that it did not meet Trump's expectations to restore his fan base and gain the status he wants on the social network.
"The bottom line is, no, I'm not going back to Twitter." On April 25, local time, former US President Trump was interviewed by Fox News, saying that he would not return to Twitter, but would use his own social media as the only platform for speaking. The former president told Fox News on the same day that he will officially join the platform, which went live last month, as planned in the next 7 days.
Trump told Fox News that he wanted Musk to buy Twitter because he would improve it and he was a good guy. But Trump said his own platform was attracting millions of people, much better than the response to Twitter. He blamed Twitter for having bots and fake accounts.
Regarding the relationship between Trump and Musk, a source told Fox News that Trump and Musk have a very good relationship. The source said Trump defended Musk in 2018 when the Tesla CEO was accused of securities fraud for posting misleading tweets about potential deals to take Tesla private.
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