Elon Musk Buys Twitter for $44 Billion

“The announcement ends a weeks-long saga Musk kicked off when he offered to buy the company at $54.20 per share, his “best and final.”

The South African born centi-billionaire with eccentric personality, Elon Musk has finally acquired the social media Twitter for a whapping $44 billion. The deal was shaky at his initial attempt to acquire the giant social media, but after his aggressive first trial, cool headed later prevailed and finally a deal was struck among the parties.

Twitter’s board of directors sought to fend off a hostile takeover by adopting a so-called poison pill. But Elon Musk did not give up and offer them an attractive deal they cannot say no. Twitter’s board accepted billionaire Elon Musk’s offer to buy the social media company and he promised to make it private, as confirmed by Twitter.

“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 included in the press release announcing the $44 billion deal. “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,” Elon Musk stated.

According to Wall Street Journal, Twitter shares were ahead about 6% in afternoon trading on Monday. Twitter has been an anemic stock-market performer in an era of huge returns for technology companies. Its shares jumped on their first day of trading in 2013 to close at $44.90, within a dollar of where they were more than eight years later when Mr. Musk made his approach.

The turnabout on Twitter’s part comes after Mr. Musk met privately Friday with several shareholders of the company to extol the virtues of his proposal while repeating that the board has a “yes-or-no” decision to make, people familiar with the discussions said.

Mr. Musk, with over 82 million Twitter followers, has long used the platform to pronounce his views on everything from space travel to cryptocurrencies. In January, he began buying Twitter stock, becoming the single-largest individual investor with a more than 9% stake by April.

He has previously used Twitter to escalate a conflict with the Securities and Exchange Commission after the agency opened a probe into some of his recent stock sales, and he often blasts his critics on the social network.

Taking Twitter private would allow Mr. Musk to make changes without the scrutiny public companies typically are under from their shareholders. He also has said he wants to retain as many shareholders as possible. “

Elon Musk is the richest man in the planet earth according to official ranking of the billionaires released by Forbes magazine.