Elon Musk buys Twitter for $44bn

Twitter announced on Monday, April 25, that it is selling the platform for $44 billion to billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk.

The sale marked a significant change for the board, which had previously attempted to prevent Musk from turning the social networking platform private.

“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 stated in a joint statement announcing the takeover.

“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,” he added.

Musk had purchased a significant interest in the company earlier this month before securing $46.5 billion in funding last week to complete the deal, The Punch reports.

Twitter board chairman, Bret Taylor stated that the organization “conducted a thoughtful and exhaustive process to analyse Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and finance.

“Also, we believe the proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders,” he added.