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Technology, capital, media, only one president, Musk's skills are all lit up.
Author 丨Kinki
Edit 丨 nuts
Cover source 丨 network
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After only a month, Musk successfully pocketed Twitter.
On April 25, US time, the US social media company Twitter accepted the acquisition agreement of billionaire Elon Musk, and Musk bought Twitter for $54.2 per share, totaling about $44 billion.
The largest financing merger in history is expected to be completed within this year, after the acquisition is completed, Twitter will become a private holding company, some netizens commented on it: technology, capital, media, only one president, Musk's skills are all full.
1
Twitter heavy user "Musk"
According to the 2021 Global Billionaires Indicator List released by Bloomberg in December last year, Musk, as the world's richest man, has a net worth of $274 billion (about 1.74 trillion yuan), so it seems that the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter is not much for Musk.
As the world's crown of billionaires, Musk's involvement is very extensive, in addition to the well-known Tesla brand, Musk also has an aerospace company SpaceX, which has successfully sent three rich people to the space station, he said that in the future, he will build a human community on Mars.
In addition, Musk's business also involves various aspects, such as finance, which he co-founded with friends to create electronic payment software "X.com" and "PayPal"; in addition to infrastructure, in April this year, Musk's early years of "boring companies" focused on the construction of underground tunnels also received a financing.
It is not difficult to see that Musk is definitely a busy person, but although his one hour is broken into two hours, Musk is still very keen to take time out to tweet.
As a heavy user of Twitter, Musk has more than 80 million fans, he often shares some of his own insights on Twitter, and unlike the flat and stable speeches of celebrities managed by the public relations team, Musk never says official polite words, he only says what he wants to say, his mouth is not covered, and he will personally interact with netizens.
For example, on April 1, 2018, he sent a speculation that "Tesla is bankrupt", accompanied by a photo of his beard, although he knew that this day was April Fool's Day, Tesla's stock price still fell by 7% instantly.
Recently, in response to Bill Gates' shorting of Tesla, Musk satirized Bill Gates' image on Twitter like a pregnant woman, and the two opened fire on Twitter.
Perhaps because of the "deep responsibility of love", Musk posted a vote on Twitter in March this year: Do you think Twitter abides by the principles of Free Speech? He also asked netizens whether Twitter is a place for "free speech."
In the end, 70 percent of the more than 2 million votes voted that Twitter was still unqualified. After receiving the voting results, Musk once again asked netizens on Twitter: Is a new platform needed?
Soon, netizens found that this time Musk did not seem to be "mouth cannon", but really took action.
2
More than 1 month of acquisition action
In fact, musk has already begun to act as early as mid-March, and he submitted an application to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to increase his stock holdings, proposing to acquire a 9.2% stake in Twitter in the form of passive investment. According to the definition of "passive investment", Musk will only hold part of Twitter's shares after this investment, and will not involve decisions affecting the company.
But what is unexpected is that after Musk asked netizens if they needed a new platform, on April 4, there were news reports on the Internet that Musk already owned 9.2% of Twitter's shares, and it was already the largest shareholder of Twitter.
Immediately after, Musk proposed on April 14 that he wanted to buy 100% of Twitter's shares for $54.20 (about $43 billion) per share, but judging from the reactions of all parties, Twitter did not seem to want to "sell".
The first is Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, one of Twitter's largest shareholders, who said Musk's offer was not sufficient and tweeted: "As one of Twitter's largest long-term shareholders, I and my investment firm rejected the offer.
Then, Twitter's board of directors is also reluctant to sell, because next, in order to prevent Musk's acquisition, Twitter launched the "poison pill plan" on April 15, that is, through a large number of low-priced new shares, to dilute the equity of the largest shareholders and prevent its hostile acquisitions, in the process, Musk once fell out of the "largest shareholder" position.
Still, Musk doesn't seem to have any intention of giving up, and in the past week, Musk has pulled out $46.5 billion in financing credentials, proving his determination and financial strength to wholly acquire Twitter, shouting twitter investors on public platforms to pressure the board, and meeting with several of Twitter's major institutional investors.
Eventually, Twitter's board made concessions, with media reports that Twitter's board had negotiated directly with Musk late Sunday night in the past, and finally reached an agreement on Monday (April 25) to agree to be acquired.
Although we can't know what terms were negotiated during the negotiations, one of the reasons for Twitter's board concession may be due to Twitter's dispersed shareholding, with the total shareholding of the 11 members of the board less than 2.5%, and the board lacks sufficient voting rights.
Coupled with Musk's inevitable appearance this time, if it continues to entangle, Musk can still acquire equity from other shareholding institutions, if the relationship between the two sides continues to deteriorate, the vicious acquisition may even cause Twitter's stock price to plummet, it is still "handshake" for everyone.
3
What will happen to Twitter?
From the outside world, the reason for Musk's acquisition of Twitter seems to be very simple, perhaps simply wanting to modify Twitter's review mechanism and restore the gene of "freedom of speech" on social platforms.
For example, former US President Trump once made some extreme remarks on Twitter during the 2020 election, which directly led to the influx of his supporters into the US Capitol and violence, and then Trump was banned by Twitter.
It is worth mentioning that after the news of Musk's acquisition of Twitter came out, Trump also expressed his approval in an interview with the media, he believes that Musk is a good person and will improve Twitter, but at the same time Trump also made it clear that he will not return to Twitter.
When Trump's account was blocked, Musk also publicly expressed dissatisfaction, and some people joked that Musk's acquisition of Twitter may just want to ensure that his tweets are not censored.
However, don't forget that Musk is also a businessman, the businessman is "treasureless", musk's motivation to buy Twitter is really so simple?
Since Saudi Arabia, one of Twitter's shareholders, has expressed optimism about Twitter's future growth, what is Twitter's data? From the user data, its volume is far less than that of competitors Facebook and TikTok; from the performance point of view, although its revenue has increased in 2021, it is still in a loss, with a net loss of $2.21, and the loss narrowed year-on-year.
The performance may not be eye-catching, but it is also stable and rising, and more importantly, Twitter has great social influence, and how much former President Trump loves to speak on Twitter is also obvious to all.
Perhaps, as Musk argues, he bought Twitter not to make money, but to create a platform that is trustworthy and broadly inclusive, which he believes is extremely important for the future of civilization.
From this point of view, the biggest change that the privatized Twitter ushered in may be the adjustment of its speech moderation mechanism, as Musk himself said: "I hope that even my bad critics can stay on Twitter, because this is the meaning of free speech." 」 ”
No matter what everyone thinks, Musk has already acquired Twitter, and with the blessing of star bosses, at least we can expect twitter's social influence to further increase in the industry.