Finally, Elon Musk now owns the giant social media platform Twitter. Despite Musk’s efforts to undo the deal, he was forced to pay a whopping amount of $44 billion for his recent acquisition.
In January, the Tesla founder started buying Twitter shares and by mid-March, he already owned 5% of the company’s shares. In March, he stated his plan of creating an alternative to the social media platform after expressing his concern over Twitter’s violation of “free speech” and disregarding democracy. After having a private conversation with Twitter’s executives including the platform’s founder Jack Dorsey, news circulated about the possibility of Musk’s joining the board. By April, Musk has already acquired 73.5 million shares, or 9% of the company’s shares making him the largest shareholder. His shares were worth $9 billion at that time. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal pertaining to Musk expressed in a tweet that “it became clear to us that he would bring great value to our Board.” Hence, he was offered a seat on Twitter’s board provided he will not own more than 14.9% of Twitter’s stock.
On April 9, Musk wrote down to Twitter his criticism of the social media platform in a tweet.
TOP 10 most followed Twitter accounts:
1. @BarackObama 131.4M
2. @justinbieber 114.3M
3. @katyperry 108.8M
4. @rihanna 105.9M
5. @Cristiano 98.8M
6. @taylorswift13 90.3M
7. @ladygaga 84.5M
8. @elonmusk 81M
9. @narendramodi 77.7M
10. @TheEllenShow 77.5M— World of Statistics (@stats_feed) April 9, 2022
Offended by Musk’s tweet, Agrawal sent him a private message stating that his criticism was unhelpful. Musk retaliated and stated:
“This is a waste of time. Will make an offer to take Twitter private.”
On April 14, the Tesla founder offered to buy Twitter for $44 billion. He made aggressive efforts thereafter despite opposition from the Twitter board and even raised the stake amount. On May 13, Musk’s acquisition was put temporarily put on hold since according to him, he needs to know the number of spam and fake accounts on the social media platform. This resulted in the decline of Twitter shares while Tesla rebounded. In June, he threatened to end the agreement to buy the social media platform and accused the company of refusing to grant his request on its spam bot accounts. In July, Twitter filed a complaint against Musk which he countersues.
On July 19, Delaware Chancery Judge Kathaleen St. J. McCormick stated that the Twitter-Musk dispute will do to trial in October. In August, a former head of security at Twitter surfaced and became a whistleblower. He alleged that the company has misled the authorities about its poor poor cybersecurity defenses and its inability to eliminate fake accounts and the spread of fake news on the platform. Musk tried to use it to cut himself from the Twitter deal but was unsuccessful.
On October 6, a Delaware judge gave an ultimatum to both parties to reach an agreement by 5 p.m. on Oct. 28, otherwise, new trial dates will be set in November. On Oct. 20, Musk stated his plans to lay off 75% of the company’s 7,500 employees according to a report by the Washington Post. And finally, on Oct. 26, he posted a video of himself entering Twitter premises carrying a kitchen sink.
Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in! pic.twitter.com/D68z4K2wq7
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 26, 2022
On Oct. 27, Elon Musk, Tesla founder and now Twitter owner, reportedly fired CEO Parag Agrawal along with other Twitter executives. That was one big humpy-dumpy ride but yes, finally, it’s official! Musk is now the owner of Twitter. Are we going to see more freedom of speech this time with Musk now owning the bird? Judging from the new Twitter owner’s tweet, maybe we can say yes but of course, it is yet to be seen.
the bird is freed
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) October 28, 2022
