Elon Musk is the new owner of Twitter

Social networking site Twitter will now go private after being acquired by multimillionaire Elon Musk.

Three weeks after he took over from investment fund The Vanguard Group as the majority shareholder of Twitter, Elon Musk is officially buying the social network from Bluebird for $54.20 a share in cash in a deal worth about $44 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Twitter shareholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each Twitter common share they own upon closing of the proposed deal. The purchase price represents a 38 percent premium to the closing price of Twitter shares on April 1, 2022, the last trading day before Elon Musk announced his roughly 9 percent stake on Twitter.

“Free speech is the foundation of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is a digital community platform where issues vital to the future of humanity are discussed,” said Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by adding new features to the product, making trust-building algorithms open source, killing spambots, and authenticating all people. Twitter has a lot of potential and I look forward to working with the company and the user community to showcase it.” Parag Agrawal, CEO of Twitter, added: “Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the world. I am deeply proud of our teams and inspired by work that has never been more important. ”

Twitter takeover triggers stock market reaction

As soon as the acquisition was announced, Twitter shares rose over 6% on Wall Street, while Tesla took a hit, gaining over 2% before rebounding slightly. A venture capital firm linked to Donald Trump’s social media business also compounded the fall, with shares down about 15%.