After months of drama, finally, Elon Musk has closed the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. He is taking Twitter private. There is no official announcement yet, but Musk’s tweet confirms it.
Musk will pay for the acquisition largely with cash. Some money will come from co-investors including $13 billion in debt.
He has also fired several Twitter top executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, CFO Ned Segal, policy chief Vijaya Gadde, general counsel Sean Edgett, and chief customer officer Sarah Personette.
Musk and Twitter executives did not immediately respond to this matter. Musk wasn’t happy with these executives and accused them of misleading Twitter investors and himself by faking growth numbers and underrepresenting the number of fake accounts.
When Musk initially announced his internet on Twitter, he said he wanted to defeat bots and prevent the platform from becoming an echo chamber for hate and division. He also claims that the primary reason to buy Twitter is not to make money but to help humanity.
It all began back on April 4 after Musk acquired 9.2% of Twitter and became Twitter’s largest individual shareholder. He joined Twitter’s board and offered to buy the company for a price of $54.20 per share. In a few days, he complained that Twitter’s spam accounts were higher than Twitter’s estimate. Musk then decided to terminate the deal on grounds of these fake numbers.
Twitter desperately wanted to close the deal. Therefore, the company sued Musk to force him to complete the deal. Twitter’s former security chief also came in support of Musk and claimed that Twitter has hidden negligent security practices. The trial also began in the Delaware Court of Chancery. Now, Musk has finalized the deal.