After creating much noise on the internet, the whole Twitter debacle has finally come to a sound conclusion. Despite the owners’ initial defensive maneuvers against a takeover, Elon Musk has officially bought the Twitter application for a hefty sum of 44 billion USD or whereabouts. He then took to the platform to voice out some optimistic statements afterward. We’ll break it down here.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has always been vocal, especially on Twitter. He even went as far as calling out Bill Gates for shorting his company, with a body-related meme on the side. Despite all his online antics though, none of them really come close to this issue he had with the social media giant.
We’ll narrate a quick summary here. Musk bought a 5 percent stake of the company in early 2022, but increased this to 9.2% after expressing his disdain for the lack of free speech. He made some recommendations such as an “edit” button which was already being explored by the company at the time. Rumors speculate that not having the final decision-making power threw Elon off, and the Twitter board chose to welcome him to the board in order to control his ownership. Their company rules state that board members can only own up to a certain percentage of the company for themselves, which was never going to earn Elon the power he wanted within the firm.
On April 5, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal tweeted that Elon Musk was joining the board. Elon initially responded well to this, saying that he was looking forward to making significant improvements to the platform within the coming months. This is probably when he realized the strategy that was used against him.
Just a day short of a week later, Agrawal was forced to rescind this statement since Elon had decided to no longer push through with his participation. Despite this, the world’s richest person remained to be one of the company’s largest shareholders – simultaneously calling out the biggest accounts for being inactive.
After that, it was all a blur. Elon Musk offered an upfront $43B for the entirety of the company, to which the board had attempted to respond with a poison pill defense. For those who aren’t in the know, this is to thwart hostile takeovers and make it extremely counterintuitive to pursue the purchase of the firm. Elon was fully prepared to wage a legal battle though; anchored on the actions of his colleagues making moves contrary to investor interest, and his position as a major shareholder. This was checkmate.
As of today, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal and multiple media sources have confirmed that Twitter indeed has changed hands. Each stock was bought for $54.20 in USD, achieving a total of around $44 billion. To mark the news, Agrawal tweeted: “Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”
Elon Musk then gives us a glimpse of his future plans for Twitter. He uploads a picture that says: “Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.” He then continues to declare the enhancement of the platform via new features, deletion of spam bots, human authentication, and others. He believes that this will pave the way for Twitter’s full potential to be unlocked.
Another recent post, assumed to be right after the purchase, reads out: “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.” If we can trust anyone to put his money where his mouth is after all his rambling these past few months, it’s this man.
These are definitely good signs that Twitter is going to improve under new ownership and not the other way around. We genuinely hope that Musk employs the same far-reaching innovation that made Tesla and SpaceX such successes. Only time will tell what he will do with it, but we’re all here for the ride anyways.
Featured image courtesy of Patrick Pleul, AFP
