Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter, Let's get all the facts.
Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square really important that people have the both the the reality and the perception that they're able to speak freely within the bounds of the low. Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter at $54.20 per share valuing the social media company at $43 billion dollars.
According to a regulatory filing in a letter to Brett Taylor, the chairman of Twitter's board of directors, Musk said “Twitter has extraordinary potential, I will unlock it”. An hour after the story broke, Musk tweeted I made an offer.
Musk's offer to buy Twitter is the latest in a string of events between the billionaire and the social media site. It comes just days after he decided not to join Twitter's board of directors after acquiring a 9.25% stake in the company in March. The nearly $3 billion acquisition made Musk Twitter's largest shareholder until the Vanguard group increased its stake and bumped him from the top spot.
Once news of Musk's bid hit Twitter, there were mixed reactions. Musk's followers and supporters expressed excitement that he might own the social media platform but many more voiced concern at the idea of the reportedly richest person in the world owning Twitter and adding the company to his numerous business assets. However Musk says, he's not looking to make money from Twitter, that is he doesn't view the acquisition as a financial investment, instead he sees it as a service for public good.
“My strong intuitive sense is that, having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization. I don't care about the economics at all” Said Musk an avid Twitter user. He is also one of the site's biggest critics. Musk tweeted a poll to his 81 million followers in March asking whether users believe Twitter was protecting free speech he said. The poll results in which roughly 70 percent of 2 million respondents answered ‘No’ would be very important as part of his original agreement to join Twitter's board.
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Musk had pledged to cap any investment at 14.9 percent while serving a two-year term. With the agreement now scrapped, Musk is free to add to a stake. If Musk acquires Twitter, he says he wants to increase the public's trust of the platform by making it a place of inclusivity and true freedom of speech. A necessary feature of any functioning democracy he adds. During an interview at the 2022 Ted conference in Vancouver, Musk said that he values truth. On April 9th he shared a tweet reading truth is the first casualty with an image from a Yougov survey showing the most trusted media organizations.
Since announcing his stake in Twitter in April, Musk has posted several tweets about what he'd change at the company and one which has since been deleted, he asked “whether Twitter's san Francisco headquarters should be turned into a homeless shelter, because no one shows up anyway” In another he asked if Twitter was dying.
As one of Twitter's largest shareholders, Musk already has a lot of power. He can team up with other shareholders and push for any changes he wants to see. Musk also has a tendency to sway public opinion with his tweets. After tweeting Tesla would no longer accept Bitcoin as a form of payment, multiple Crypto coins took a dive. When he said Tesla would start accepting Dogecoin for some merchandise, the cryptocurrency surged. He could use that power and influence to try to bring changes to Twitter without buying it. If he does acquire Twitter, Musk proposed a number of changes he would make to the social media platform, including an edit button. Something he told his followers about a few weeks ago.
Twitter has been working on an Edit feature since 2021 something Musk didn't acknowledge during his Ted conference interview. Musk's edit button would be time sensitive and also zero out any retweets, eliminating scam bots. Bot armies on Twitter would also be a top priority for Musk, he noted during his interview that they bring down the site's product value and make it worse for users.
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Musk said you would also make Twitter's content moderation practices more transparent. He added that users should know whether tweets were being promoted or de-emphasized manually or algorithmically. He cautioned against permanent bans from Twitter advocating for temporary suspensions, instead Musk believes Twitter's coding structure should be transparent.
As well if he purchases Twitter, he said he would post its open source data on Github, a popular form for coders, so people can access the company's data, identify flaws and offer solutions. Musk is an avid Twitter user with over 81 million followers however he admits he doesn't really have a strategy for his Twitter account. His tweets are reflections of a stream of consciousness.
It's impressive considering that neither Tesla nor SpaceX companies he owns operate a marketing or public relations department. News and developments at both companies is often shared first via Musk's Twitter account.
Musk's interest in acquiring Twitter is just one in a long line of billionaires increasingly investing in media organizations. Mark Zuckerberg, founder and CEO of Meta formerly Facebook, bought Instagram in 2012 for one billion dollars and Whatsapp in 2014 for 19 billion dollars. Both acquisitions came under scrutiny from lawmakers and social media users a short time. After his Ted event interview Musk tweeted, his offer should be put to a shareholder vote. Despite all the attention some analysts say it's unlikely Twitter will accept Musk's offer. A handful of Twitter's investors think the 43 billion offer is too low and say the company will likely look around for other buyers. In his letter to the chairman of Twitter's board, Musk said that if Twitter rejects the offer, he'd reconsider his position as a shareholder in the company.
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