Lead
April 25,
Social media platform Twitter accepted Elon Musk's acquisition deal.
On April 25, Twitter announced that it had reached an acquisition agreement with Musk, allowing Him to wholly acquire Twitter for $54.20 per share, totaling about $44 billion in cash.
This means that after the transaction is completed, Twitter will become a private enterprise. The deal, which received unanimous approval from Twitter's board of directors but still requires shareholder and regulatory approvals, is expected to close in 2022.
Unlike other internet companies, Twitter doesn't have a binary ownership system, and founders and executives don't have super voting rights. And Twitter's shareholding structure is very fragmented, several of the largest shareholders are institutional investors, musk only two months to buy enough stock from the open market, becoming the largest investor.
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey tweeted 6 times in a row expressing his expectations for Musk's support.
"Twitter It's already owned by Wall Street and the advertising model. Taking it back from Wall Street is the right first step. He called Musk a "unique solution" to the Twitter problem and called Musk's mission to "expand the light of consciousness," "Elon's goal is to create a platform that is 'trusted and widely inclusive,' and rightly so."
Dorsey is a co-founder and former CEO of Twitter, where he led Twitter to go public in 2013. But as the world's most influential social media platform, Twitter has not shown corresponding commercial value, and its stock price is far lower than that of competitors, and even only two-thirds of the teen social networking app Snap ($60 billion market value).
Beginning in 2020, Elliot Management, one of Twitter's aggressive hedge funds, drove a major change in Twitter, and under pressure, Dorsey abruptly resigned as CEO last November to be replaced by Parag Agrawal, who had been CTO.
Musk's acquisition of Twitter is a real focus of controversy over free speech and content control. He has repeatedly and publicly stressed that he bought Twitter not to make money, but to defend free speech.
Musk has been advocating minimal interference in the "open market for speech" and sees Twitter as a civic square in the age of the internet, after lamenting that excessive speech regulation was stifling Twitter.
Over the past few years, Twitter has become the center of political opinion competition between the left and the right factions in the United States. Previously, disinformation about the new crown epidemic and vaccines, conspiracy theories about "fraud" in the US election and other related news were strictly restricted by Twitter.
Last year, former U.S. President Donald Trump was banned for violating Twitter rules, a move that drew outrage from Trump and many conservative politicians.
"When I was in the White House, we did a lot for Twitter and I was disappointed with the way Twitter treated me." Trump said Monday that even if Musk lifts the ban, he will not return to Twitter, but will continue to use his social platform, Truth Social.
Dorsey also said: "I am delighted that Twitter will continue to serve the public conversation. All over the world, even fly to the stars! ”