Billionaire Elon Musk purchased Twitter for a cool $44 billion.
Summary
Twitter accepted a $44 billion takeover bid from billionaire businessman Elon Musk, who also owns and runs Tesla and SpaceX.
- Musk’s bid – with an initial share price of $54.20, an apparent marijuana reference – may have seemed like a joke to Twitter at first but became very real, very fast.
- Twitter tried to fight his bid with a “poison pill” maneuver but after he secured financing Twitter’s board picked the “path of least resistance” and accepted his takeover.
- Bankers called the bid “fair” after Musk secured financing from Morgan Stanley, ponied up $21 billion in cash and used one third of his stake in Tesla as collateral.
- Twitter’s most famous former user, Donald Trump, quickly said he would not try to rejoin the platform. We’ll see how long that lasts…
- The New York Times noted the “blockbuster” Twitter deal is a “prize” for Elon Musk although the “scrutiny” will be intense.
- The Washington Post focused on Twitter’s progressive employees, who now “face a reality they’ve long feared:” working for Elon Musk.
- Slate expressed skepticism of Musk’s purchase, characterizing it as “impulse-[buying] a $44 billion pain in the ass.”
- Fox News reported Jeff Bezos launched a “China conspiracy theory” after Musk’s purchase of Twitter. Bezos tweeted his suspicions that China had leverage over Twitter now that Musk owns the social media site.
- The Daily Wire covered the progressive freakout over Musk’s purchase, including one activist saying the African-born businessman’s takeover was “all about white power.”
- National Review said “Godspeed to Elon Musk” in his “attempt to make that ‘digital town square’ more open, less arbitrary, and better suited to the potential of the web.”
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© Dominic Moore, 2022
