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Elon Musk finally bags Twitter in a $44-billion deal as he pushes for free speech

Billionaire Elon Musk has taken control of Twitter In one of the world’s biggest deals in the technology world. The deal will see Mr Musk acquiring the social network for approximately $44 billion with shares valued at $54.20. Mr Musk had announced his takeover bid on April 14, calling it his “best and final offer”. 


“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. 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,” Mr Musk said in a press statement posted on his Twitter account. 


His bid initially saw Twitters putting in place a “poison pill defence” against the hostile takeover. However, once Mr Musk announced that he had secured funding, the board went into negotiations with the Tesla co-founder. According to the Wall Street Journal, on Friday, Mr Musk had met “privately with several shareholders of the company to extol the virtues of his proposal” and also made video calls to them to push for his case. 


Earlier today, Mr Musk had posted on his Twitter account: “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter because that is what free speech means.” It should also be noted that on Saturday, Mr Musk had posted a rather distasteful tweet about Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates, apparently in response to Mr Gates shorting Tesla. The tweet has more than a million likes. He had then joked that the “shadow ban council” was likely reviewing his tweet. 


He has been a steadfast proponent of “free speech” on the platform. In the filing to the US SEC, Mr Musk wrote: “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.” He also wrote in the filing: “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”

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