Twitter agreed to be taken over at $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the share price before it was revealed that Mr. Musk had been buying up the company’s stock.
The deal, which has been unanimously approved by Twitter’s board, is expected to close this year, subject to a vote of Twitter shareholders and certain regulatory approvals.
Mr. Musk himself has had a rocky relationship with online speech. This year, he tried to quash a Twitter account that
tracked the movements of his private jet, citing personal and safety reasons. On Monday, he tweeted that he hoped his worst critics would remain on Twitter because “that is what free speech means.”
“Without any conditions for Musk to purchase Twitter, the platform’s community standards and recourse to ban users who violate those standards, Twitter could set a dangerous precedent for other social media companies to follow,” said Bridget Todd, director at UltraViolet, a women’s rights organization. “This is a massively slippery slope.”
Beyond speech issues, Twitter faces questions about its business. For years, the company has struggled to gain new users and to keep people coming back to the service. Its advertising business, which is the main way Twitter makes revenue, has been inconsistent. Twitter has not turned a profit for eight of the last 10 years.
Twitter agreed to be taken over at $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the share price before it was revealed that Mr. Musk had been buying up the company’s stock.
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