Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk, who is responsible for bringing back America’s capability to send American astronauts to space from American soil using American-made spacecraft, successfully acquired Twitter in a $44 billion deal. The acquisition is a huge win for free speech on Twitter, one of the world’s most prominent social media platforms.
Twitter did what it could to block Musk’s acquisition attempt. Twitter employees cried foul, saying that they were “super stressed” on their monthly “day of rest.” The Twitter Board also adopted a “poison pill” strategy that would have made it very costly for Musk to acquire more of the company. These didn’t matter in the long run.
Filings from last week indicated that Musk was exploring a tender offer to buy Twitter stock directly from shareholders. The SEC documents also said that Musk received commitments for $46.5 billion to help finance the buyout. By Sunday, Twitter’s Board was negotiating with Musk. The discussions lasted until the early hours of Monday.
It was only a matter of time before Twitter announced that Musk’s $54.20 per share offer had been accepted. It’s more than a fair price for the platform, as its shares were down before Musk’s involvement anyway.
Musk has been open about his plans for Twitter. During his appearance at TED 2022, Musk promised to open-source Twitter’s algorithm so that anyone could critique it. That’s a scary thought — for a platform that’s been accused of censoring conservative voices.
“Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square… So one of the things that I believe Twitter should do is open source the algorithm and make any changes to people’s tweets — if they’re emphasized or de-emphasized — that action should be made apparent, so anyone can see that action’s been taken. So there’s no behind-the-scenes manipulation, either algorithmically or manually,” Musk said.
Twitter’s under new management. Free speech and common sense will hopefully be back very soon.