Elon Musk to Buy Twitter for $44 Billion

(Reuters/Hamodia) – Elon Musk clinched a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion on Monday, in a transaction that will shift control of the social-media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world’s richest person.

Discussions over the deal, which last week appeared uncertain, accelerated over the weekend after Musk wooed Twitter shareholders with financing details of his offer.

Under pressure, Twitter started negotiating with Musk to buy the company at the proposed $54.20 per share price. 

The deal ends Twitter’s run as a public company since its 2013 initial public offering.

“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,” Musk said in a statement.

Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, is an advocate for free speech and critic of censorship. Twitter has come under fire from the political right for its censorship of posts and individuals over content the company has deemed harmful.

Most famously, Twitter banned former President Donald Trump, after some Trump supporters, inflamed by his claims of election fraud, stormed the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Following his ban, Trump said he would start his own social-media platform, TRUTH Social. On Monday, Trump told Fox News he wouldn’t re-join Twitter even if Musk purchased the platform, and would begin “TRUTHing” in the next week.

“I am not going on Twitter, I am going to stay on TRUTH,” Trumpsaid. “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on TRUTH.”

Twitter’s shares were up about 6% following the news.