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It’s official: Elon Musk acquiring Twitter in a deal valued at $44 billion

Twitter has made it official: it will accept Elon Musk’s offer to buy the company at a value of $54.20 per share. This comes after Elon Musk submitted what he called his “best and final” offer to take the company private earlier this month. Head below for the full details on Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.

Elon Musk is buying Twitter

Initially, reports indicated that Twitter was not interested in accepting Musk’s offer to acquire the company. Twitter’s board of directors even adopted a “poison pill” to avoid a hostile takeover. Then, reports earlier on Monday indicated that Twitter’s board of directors were considering the offer and the company could announce the deal as soon as Monday afternoon.

That has now come to fruition, with Twitter announcing that it has indeed accepted Musk’s offer to acquire the company. The deal is valued at $54.20 per share, for a total value of $44 billion. This means that Twitter shareholders will receive $54.20 per share owned.

Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s CEO, said, “Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”

“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,” said Mr. Musk. “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.”

Twitter says that Musk has secured $25.5 billion of fully committed debt and margin loan financing and is providing an approximately $21.0 billion equity commitment. Once the deal is finalized, the company will be privately held.

This deal was “unanimously approved by the Twitter Board of Directors” and is expected to close this year.

Parag Agrawal, Twitter’s CEO, said:

Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.

Musk has said that he believes Twitter must go private in order to “thrive.” The Tesla and SpaceX CEO has argued that Twitter does not reflect values of free speech, and that the company in its current form “will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative.”

I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy.

However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.

What do you make of Twitter’s acceptance of Musk’s acquisition offer? Let us know down in the comments. 

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Avatar for Chance Miller Chance Miller

Chance is an editor for the entire 9to5 network and covers the latest Apple news for 9to5Mac.

Tips, questions, typos to chance@9to5mac.com