Tesla boss, SpaceX CEO, richest man in the world and soon to be the sole owner of Twitter. Multi-billionaire Elon Musk has landed his next coup and reached an agreement with Twitter on a takeover.
Musk wants to pay 54.20 dollars per share. This is above the current share price and corresponds to a total of 44 billion dollars.
Tweeting with 140 characters
Twitter was founded in March 2006 by Jack Dorsey, Biz Stone and Evan Williams. Registered users can "tweet" short messages on the platform in a maximum of 140 characters. Pictures and videos can now also be posted.
The platform is used by private individuals, but also by companies and media groups; the service has around 211 million active users per day worldwide. Former US President Barack Obama has the largest reach with around 130 million followers
Elon Musk: entrepreneur and visionary
Born in Pretoria, South Africa, in 1971, Musk emigrated to North America at the age of 17. He was already developing computer games at the age of twelve, and his first company Zip2 was acquired by computer manufacturer Compaq for 307 million dollars in 1999.
Musk caused a stir as co-founder of Paypal and founder of the aerospace company SpaceX. He became known worldwide when he joined the car manufacturer Tesla.
Timeline takeover
On April 4, 2022, it became known that Musk had bought 9.2 percent of Twitter shares. This was followed by a complaint because deadlines for reporting to the US Securities and Exchange Commission were not met. Originally, Musk's investment in Twitter was supposed to include a position on the Supervisory Board. Musk decided against this and the first takeover rumors promptly arose - the position would have limited his stake to a maximum of 14.9 percent.
On April 14, the takeover bid is on the table, Elon Musk wants to buy 100 percent of the shares at 54.20 dollars each. Twitter initially tries to avert the takeover, but then enters into negotiations. An agreement is said to have been reached on April 25, with Musk presenting a solid financing plan.
Financing
Musk's fortune is estimated at 280 billion dollars - more than six times the purchase price of Twitter. However, a large part of this is in shares and is not freely available. Musk wants to raise the purchase price together with various lenders, but he wants to pay around 21 billion himself. The purchase will be completed if the shareholders approve it.
What does Musk want with Twitter
The entrepreneur has also already commented on his plans with Twitter. He sees enormous potential and is looking forward to working with the company and its users to unleash it. He wants to make Twitter "better than ever before", introduce new functions and make algorithms available as open source. In this way, he wants to increase trust. To make it easier to push ahead with the necessary restructuring, Twitter is to be delisted from the stock exchange.
For Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, the takeover by Elon Musk is a good development. However, the reactions to the takeover have not always been positive. Musk has often spoken out about the lack of freedom of expression on the platform in the past.
Twitter has increasingly taken action against hateful behavior, temporarily or completely blocking accounts. The best-known example is certainly former US President Donald Trump. Critics fear that less action will be taken against misinformation and hate messages after Musk's takeover.
