After weeks of speculation, posturing and sending messages through the media, Elon Musk has finally become the new owner of Twitter.
The company accepted the Tesla and SpaceX founder and CEO’s offer of $44 billion, prompting Musk to release a statement in support of free speech.
Musk has taken issue with Twitter’s censorship in the past, and polled his fans as to whether the social media platform’s algorithm should be open source or not.
“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.
“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.”
The full post including Musk’s emojis in celebration of the purchase is shown below.
🚀💫♥️ Yesss!!! ♥️💫🚀 pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022
Twitter Stock Rises On News of Musk’s Purchase
Musk’s deal was closed at $54.20 per share and valued at around $44 billion according to the press release.
Twitter will become a private company once the deal is complete.
Stock in the social media giant rose 5.64% for the day after it was halted for the news.
Previously, Musk purchased a large stake in the company but declined to join its Board of Directors.
Now, the company will be controlled by the world’s richest person. Some are concerned that he will silence their voices in support of his own business interests, while others are ecstatic about the prospect of the platform ending censorship and allowing controversial figures to speak their minds without being banned.
At a TED2022 conference, Musk shared how he would like to see Twitter change under his ownership.
“I think it’s very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech,” he said at the time, acknowledging that some content moderation would be needed.
He also added that he would prefer “time outs” to permanent bans, which could mean that former president Donald Trump could rejoin Twitter at some point.
