Elon Musk buys Twitter for 44 billion US dollars

The tug-of-war over the tech company with the blue bird has been decided: Elon Musk is taking over Twitter. The richest man in the world will pay around 44 billion US dollars. This became known on Monday evening.

As previously announced, Musk pays 54.20 US dollars per Twitter share and gives the shareholders a profit with the privatization. Namely, Musk is paying a 38 percent premium for Twitter shares compared to their value before his stake was announced.

What happens now

Now shareholders must agree to the sale of their shares. However, given the good price for a company whose financial prospects are sobering, according to the New York Times, this is likely to be just a formality without major incident. Otherwise, there are also mechanisms by which larger shareholders can force smaller ones to sell.

According to The Verge, CEO Parag Agrawal and Chairman Bret Taylor appeared before employees on Monday afternoon and fielded their questions. During the meeting, Agrawal informed that the acquisition process would take about half a year. No layoffs are planned at this time, he said.

"Once the deal is done, we don't know what direction the company will take," Agrawal is said to have replied when asked if Donald Trump would be allowed back on Twitter. It is also unclear whether and for how long Agrawal will remain CEO of the tech company. Confirmed, however, is that Twitter's board of directors will be dissolved.

What happened before

In early April, it was revealed that Musk had acquired a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter last March, becoming the tech company's largest single shareholder. Shortly after, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced that the billionaire would also take a seat on the tech company's board of directors.

But before the officialization, Musk again withdrew from the new role and instead doubled down with an entire takeover bid for the tech group. The latter responded with a "poison pill" measure to stop a possible takeover for the time being.

Over the weekend, Twitter and Musk now held extensive negotiations, which ended with the decision of a takeover.

These are the changes Musk wants for the social network

At the heart of Musk's Twitter takeover is the buzzword "freedom of speech." The billionaire believes that this is currently restricted on the platform and needs to be reconsolidated. Musk has two concrete suggestions for this: First, users should not be able to be permanently banned from the platform, like former U.S. President Donald Trump. Trump was permanently banned from the platform after the violent storming of the U.S. Capitol due to "the risk of further incitement to violence."

Musk favors the concept of "time outs" - meaning that should someone break the rules, she or he should only be banned for a limited time.

Another measure Musk has in mind is to make the Twitter algorithm "open source." The code that determines how Twitter works should be openly accessible on the Internet - like the Linux operating system, for example. With the public's insight, the platform should be able to be constantly improved.

Musk is also a self-confessed fan of the "Edit Button" - an editing function for tweets that have already been published. However, the tech company was already working on this feature before Musk's involvement.

Jack Dorsey is satisfied

Elon Musk gets support for the acquisition from co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey. In several tweets, he said Elon was "the only solution" he trusted. The Twitter founder lamented that the company was dominated by Wall Street and the advertising model. "Taking it back from Wall Street is the right first step," Dorsey said.