So long, bots.
Yes, it’s true; Elon Musk is buying Twitter.
It took a while, but he made good on the offering of $54.20 per share, which was way more than it was worth at the time, and is still a few dollars more than it’s worth now that the news got out. As soon as that happened, public trading of the stock was halted and Twitter’s board put out a press release.
Under the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own upon closing of the proposed transaction. The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Mr. Musk disclosed his approximately 9% stake in Twitter.
Bret Taylor, Twitter’s Independent Board Chair, said, “The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”
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.”
Said Musk of the deal:
“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.”
To be honest, there was some warning to this. Once he got the funding together, it was all but a done deal. That last part about it being a done deal is important, however. Even when you’re a billionaire, you don’t just buy a company for $44 billion. It’s entirely likely that before the transfer actually goes through, the FCC is going to go over things with a fine-toothed comb.
The upside is that Musk plans to make some changes; I’d argue that they’re necessary, too, considering the fact that Twitter has been operating in the red for quite some time (honestly, for most of its existence). Notably, he plans on making the platform free speech friendly and open source; important, considering the biggest (in other words, most useful) change they made in the course of 14 years was doubling the character count per post from 120 to 240.
For some users, this is anathema; in their case, Pillowfort is this way. It’s probably important to make the blasted hellsite that is Twitter usable to normal people so that the whole thing can actually be solvent. Because the way things have been, you can’t hold an actual discussion on Twitter. Hell, I’ve had an account since 2020, and I barely use it aside from following artists, mostly. Artists, in particular, probably suffer the most; aside from having a horde of idiots shrieking down your neck anytime you draw a character “wrong”, they also have to contend with a sizeable number of thieves taking their work and passing it off as their own. Having functional verification, like Musk plans to, is going to be a massive benefit to them. Verification will also likely cut down on the amount of “bot” accounts; accounts, specifically, that seem like real people, but aren’t.
As for how everything will actually go, however, that’s a matter of the future. Might just be that Elon Musk wanted a cleaner toilet to shitpost in (I can’t blame him, there). Who knows?
Source: TechCrunch
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