Elon Musk Buys Twitter For $44B, Aims To Make It Private Company
Leading social media platform, Twitter, has accepted a buyout offer from Tesla CEO Elon Musk, which values the firm at about $44 billion in cash. Musk has plans to make Twitter privately held company, once the deal is completed.
Twitter has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion, the social media giant announced.
According to the agreement, Twitter shareholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter that they own upon closing of the proposed transaction. The purchase price is 38% higher than Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Mr. Musk disclosed his approximately 9% stake in Twitter.
“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.”
Elon Musk highlighted the importance of free speech behind the acquisition:
“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.”
The transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Twitter Board of Directors, is expected to close within this year, subject to the approval of Twitter stockholders, the receipt of applicable regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.
Musk has secured $25.5 billion of fully committed debt and margin loan financing and is providing an approximately $21.0 billion equity commitment. There are no financing conditions to the closing of the transaction.
Meanwhile the price of dogecoin (DOGE) surged more than 20% since reports of a deal being likely surfaced on Monday morning. Some investors speculate that Musk’s fondness for DOGE mean it might play a bigger role in Twitter payments once the deal is completed.
At the time of writing, DOGE trades at $0.153, up 19.3% on the daily chart.
