Twitter has officially accepted Tesla maverick Elon Musk’s $44 billion bid for acquiring the micro-blogging company, international outlets reported on Monday.
The social media giant published a press release shortly after the announcement that Twitter trade had been suspended, stating that it had accepted Musk’s offer to take the social network private.
“The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders,” Twitter’s Independent Board Chair Bret Taylor told reporters.
Official numbers from the press release revealed that the cash deal for $54.20 per share is worth roughly $44 billion. Once the transaction is completed, Twitter will become a private corporation. The announcement brings an end to a drama that started when Musk began teasing a big investment in the firm. Soon after, Twitter announced that the Tesla CEO would join the board, only for Musk to backtrack several days later. Later, he made his “best and final” bid to acquire the firm for $54.20 per share, which finally valued Twitter at around $43 billion.
In a statement included in Twitter’s press release, Musk said, “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. I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it”.
If the purchase is completed and Musk becomes the owner of Twitter, the company would be owned by the world’s richest person and someone who has been a vocal critic of the network while using it in legally questionable ways, most notably through sensitive statements about his car company, Tesla.