Elon Musk buys Twitter for $44 billion, claims win for free speech

Twitter shares were up more than 5% on Monday after the company’s board unanimously accepted tech billionaire Elon Musk’s $44 billion offer to buy the social media platform – an outcome which Musk has celebrated as a victory for free speech.

"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," Musk said in a statement.

Per the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of common stock that they currently own once the deal is completed. According to a Fox News report, the purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s closing price on April 1, the last day of trading before Musk acquired a 9.2% share of the company.

Last week, Musk revealed that he has secured $46.5 billion in funding to purchase Twitter, just days after the social media company’s board blocked him from increasing his shareholding without its approval.

Musk outlined his funding commitments in a filing on Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the U.S.’ financial watchdog. Previously, he stated that his move to buy Twitter is meant to protect free speech and has suggested that he would push to unlock the platform’s potential with features like an edit button and an open-source algorithm, Yahoo Finance reported.

The board-approved deal is expected to close this year, subject to the approval of the company’s stockholders, the receipt of applicable regulatory approvals and the satisfaction of other contractual conditions.

According to Twitter’s board chairman Brett Taylor, the company “conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon's proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing.”

Elon Musk is a self-described “free-speech absolutist” and has been critical of the platform and its CEO Parag Agrawal’s move to suppress speech on the platform – even banning prominent users including former President Donald Trump.

"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," Musk said in a statement. "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."

Amid the debate surrounding censorship across social media, Trump launched his own platform called Truth Social where he hopes to offer users an space where free speech will not be limited. The new platform ended its beta-testing period on Friday and has since migrated to the Rumble cloud, a move which will open the door for millions of users to join.

“Twitter’s become very boring. They’ve gotten rid of a lot of good voices on Twitter, a lot of their conservative voices,” Trump told Americano media.