Elon Musk Offers to Buy Twitter

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Elon Musk Offers To Buy 100% Of Twitter​

“My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” Musk said in a filing.
By Marita Vlachou
Apr. 14, 2022, 06:34 AM EDT | Updated 3 hours ago


Billionaire Elon Musk offered to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash to take the company private, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission filing he released Thursday.
“I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced,” said Musk, the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX. His offer values Twitter at about $43 billion.


Musk tweeted the SEC filing to his over 81 million followers.


Musk is at the top of Forbes’ “The Real-Time Billionaires List,” with a net worth of over $270 billion.
In trading before New York markets opened, Twitter shares jumped as much as 18%. Tesla fell.
Musk, who currently owns about 9% of Twitter and is the company’s biggest shareholder, said Twitter needs to be “transformed as a private company.”


“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,” Musk is quoted as saying in the filing.
“My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” Musk said. “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”
Twitter confirmed it had received the “unsolicited, non-binding” offer, which it said would be reviewed by its board.
On Sunday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced Musk would not be joining the company’s board, despite his large investment in the company.


“I believe this is for the best,” Agrawal wrote in a statement. “We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not.”

Musk had been appointed to Twitter’s board earlier, “contingent on a background check and formal acceptance,” according to Agrawal.
The Tesla and SpaceX CEO is facing a lawsuit for not disclosing his initial investment in Twitter to the SEC sooner.
Musk has also had a longstanding battle with the SEC. In 2018, the regulator charged Musk with securities fraud for “misleading” tweets about his intention to take Tesla private at $420 per share. Musk settled for $40 million.

He also had to give up the Tesla board chair’s seat for three years and agreed to allow the company to preview any statement he intends to make about Tesla.
In February 2019, the SEC asked a judge to hold Musk in contempt over tweets misstating production targets for the carmaker, causing Tesla’s shares to fall by more than 3%. The tweets in question had not been reviewed by the company, as mandated by the 2018 settlement.
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Interesting... so would his potential total control over Twitter, turning the company private from public, make it more apt for free speech, or less apt? As a private company, Twitter moderators could censor as they wished, correct? Wouldn't that kind of contradict the idea of "free speech"? Or would it be an "anything goes" with less moderating?
 
I LOVE the idea. Twitter has become a cesspool, and Elon might improve things. The free speech idea ROCKS.

I'm fairly certain it would be an "anything goes" situation. Which is a breath of fresh air, actually.
 
No, please no more corporate consolidation. I want my cyberpunk to stay fictional. There's a reason why other "free speech" platforms don't go over well or rocket to success. Often it's not about free speech, rather it's about excluding things the reader disagrees with. Nobody actually likes free speech, people just wanna talk and be free of consequences. Moderation and terms of service fulfill a purpose, and yes, can be abused. Removing them makes a site less functional, or must then implement one, i.e. Gab and GETTR being other examples of "free speech first" platforms quickly descended into groyper bs, and so they had to implement a little more control.
 
“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,” Musk is quoted as saying in the filing.
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I smell a rat. I haven't noticed that Musk previously has been much of a champion of human rights or philanthropy. Mostly, he seems to invest in things that he thinks will be profitable, or that he thinks are cool, like his rockets.
 
Twitter is a bad place. I just had my bad experience with it. In France currently there is the presidential elections, so all I see everywhere, all I heard is politics. That Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are horrible and how awful theses two are and that we are doomned, France is going to be destroyed etc etc etc. On my twitter account, I subscribed on a football page and they were doing a propagande and I literally couldn’t support that. They were doing publicity for only one candidate, telling people to vote for this one, and I hate it when people do this. Don’t influence people for god’s sake, let them do their own research and make theirs own choices. So I was tired to see politics publications about only, I repeat, one candidate and about a week ago, on a Football page, I repeat this also, I just wrote this : « Okay but it’s a football page, let’s talk football not politics, don’t influence people please » and you wouldn’t believe the amount of hate response I get. Like : « they do what they want, shut your mouth ». I received so many message that I had to désactivate the notifications and in the end I deleted my account. So as far as I’m concerned twitter can go to hell, I don’t care !
 
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Antho said:
Twitter is a bad place. I just had my bad experience with it. In France currently there is the presidential elections, so all I see everywhere, all I heard is politics. That Emmanuel Macron and Marine Le Pen are horrible and how awful theses two are and that we are doomned, France is going to be destroyed etc etc etc. On my twitter account, I subscribed on a football page and they were doing a propagande and I literally couldn’t support that. They were doing publicity for only one candidate, telling people to vote for this one, and I hate it when people do this. Don’t influence people for god’s sake, let them do their own research and make theirs own choices. So I was tired to see politics publications about only, I repeat, one candidate and about a week ago, on a Football page, I repeat this also, I just wrote this : « Okay but it’s a football page, let’s talk football not politics, don’t influence people please » and you wouldn’t believe the amount of hate response I get. Like : « they do what they want, shut your mouth ». I received so many message that I had to désactivate the notifications and in the end I deleted my account. So as far as I’m concerned twitter can go to hell, I don’t care !
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Something I read about this deal implied that Musk wants to make Twitter even more like this, as a "free speech absolutist." So, no controls, no standards, and probably soon, no reasonable people!
 
Maybe Musk wants to make Twitter consistent in regards to free speech and its incredibly opaque terms of service.

At the moment getting 'banned from twitter' seems like a crap-shoot; if you are conservative or right-leaning you can be banned for quoting Shakespeare or the Bible but if you're on the Left you can threaten to kill or rape women as long as you have pronouns and a rainbow in your bio.

Twitter is not a public square with reasonable terms of service policing what can and cannot be said; it is a Left-wing bubble that acts and censors with major bias. This should change and anyone who believes in a respectful exchange of ideas should see this as excellent news. There is a chasm between Twitter as it is now and the other 'Wild West' platforms with more relaxed service policies.

epimetrius said:
Nobody actually likes free speech, people just wanna talk and be free of consequences.
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One of the most blinkered takes in modern times, given what people get banned/canceled over nowadays.
 
This looks like a garden variety hostile takeover to me . There's no romance about homeless shelters and free speech . That's just window dressing for Musk public relations .

The funniest outcome would be if he buys it and everyone leaves . Not sure if I see 44 billion in value in that forum .
 
Stake fodder said:
Something I read about this deal implied that Musk wants to make Twitter even more like this, as a "free speech absolutist." So, no controls, no standards, and probably soon, no reasonable people!
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It’s already like that for me. Social networks, especially Twitter, give too much freedom to people. Some people, because they are anonymous, speak very badly, half of them wouldn’t speak like that in real life in front of real people. They are anonymous, they feel powerful because of that.
 
thetopher said:
At the moment getting 'banned from twitter' seems like a crap-shoot; if you are conservative or right-leaning you can be banned for quoting Shakespeare or the Bible but if you're on the Left you can threaten to kill or rape women as long as you have pronouns and a rainbow in your bio.
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Exactly!! Though the rainbow has been replaced with a Ukrainian flag. 😅

I've been in "Twitter Jail" (temp ban) a few times, and have had other profiles permanently banned because I tend to be very outspoken; especially if I'm pissed off about something. Unlike many Twitter users, I'm not there looking for a fight. But I certainly won't back down from one.

I hope Elon DOES buy it. God knows, it can't get any worse than it is now. And perhaps it'll get better. But I'm not going to lie...the prospect of TRUE free speech there is very intoxicating to me.
 
www.cnn.com

Elon Musk to buy Twitter in $44 billion deal

Twitter said Monday it has agreed to sell itself to Elon Musk in a roughly $44 billion deal that has the potential to expand the billionaire's business empire and put the world's richest man in charge of one of the world's most influential social networks.
www.cnn.com www.cnn.com

Update: Twitter will now be called "MuskR". Just kidding, but he has bought it.
 
A lot of people on Twitter are totally freaking out about this...threatening to delete their accounts, etc. It's very telling that most of them have the Ukraine flag as their avatar. Idiots.
 
thetopher
thetopher
The crazies are losing it big time, for sure. :)
I would be surprised if much changes . At 45 billion in borrowed money , I don't see any profit in free speech and good deeds . There are already plenty of 'free speech' rival platforms ...and most of them are barely afloat .

You do have to wonder about Musk and his decision making process of late . He was very bullish with Putin recently, which is just insane . That bloke is known for poisoning rivals . Why would anyone poke that Machivellian psychotic bear ? Musk will have to ramp up his security for life , to extreme paranoia levels . He's like King Midas now , all the wealth in the world but he can't touch anything .
 
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