Elon Musk Acquires Control of Twitter in USD 44 Billion Deal
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk has finally sealed the acquisition of Twitter Inc. "The reason I acquired Twitter is that it is important for the future of civilization to have a common digital town square," he said. "There is currently a great danger that social media will splinter into far right-wing and far left-wing echo chambers that generate more hate and divide our society."
Elon Musk Takes Over Twitter
Tesla
CEO Elon Musk has completed his USD 44 billion acquisition of Twitter Inc. and
has changed his Twitter profile description to "Chief Twit." On
Thursday night, he tweeted:
"The
bird is free."
After
closing the deal, Musk reportedly fired Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned
Segal, and Vijaya Gadde, Head of Legal Affairs and Chief Content Moderator. Gadde headed the team at Twitter that decided to ban
former US President Donald Trump after the Capitol riot in 2021.
On
Thursday, Musk tweeted, explaining his motivation for acquiring Twitter. The
billionaire said, "The reason I acquired Twitter is that it is important
for the future of civilization to have a common digital town square, where a
wide range of beliefs can be debated healthily without resorting to
violence."
He
continued, "There is currently a great danger that social media will
splinter into far right-wing and far left-wing echo chambers that generate more
hate and divide our society," elaborating:
"That
is why I bought Twitter. I didn’t do it because it would be easy. I didn’t do
it to make more money. I did it to try to help humanity, whom I love."
Addressing
Twitter advertisers, Musk said, "Twitter obviously cannot become a
free-for-all hell's cape, where anything can be said with no
consequences!"
He
explained that "it is essential to show Twitter users advertising that is
as relevant as possible to their needs. Low relevancy ads are spam, but highly
relevant ads are content," the new Twitter boss concluded.
"Fundamentally,
Twitter aspires to be the most respected advertising platform in the world that
strengthens your brand and grows your enterprise."
Binance
CEO Changpeng Zhao (CZ) confirmed on Thursday that his company helped fund
Musk’s Twitter acquisition, tweeting: "Our
intern says we wired the USD 500 million 2 days ago, probably just as I was
being asked about Elon/Twitter." Binance is among the 18 companies that have
committed to helping Musk fund the deal.
On
Wednesday, Tesla CEO Elon Musk reached out to Twitter headquarters to finalize
the deal. "Entering Twitter HQ – let that sink in!" he tweeted. According
to Bloomberg, Musk told Twitter employees during his visit that he was not
planning to lay off 75% of the staff.
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