Elon Musk Completes $44 Billion Takeover of Social Media Platform
Elon Musk officially acquires Twitter for $44 billion, transforming the social media giant into X Corp. The deal follows months of negotiations, board resistance, and ambitious promises regarding platform transparency and free speech.
Elon Musk completes a massive $44 billion all-cash acquisition of Twitter, officially finalizing the deal on October 27, 2022. The journey begins in January 2022 when Musk starts purchasing shares, eventually becoming the company's largest shareholder with a 9.1 percent stake by April.
After initially accepting an invitation to join Twitter's board of directors, Musk declines and instead makes an unsolicited offer to buy the entire company. Twitter's board initially deploys a "poison pill" strategy to block the hostile takeover but ultimately accepts Musk's buyout proposal by late April.
Under Musk's new ownership, the social media platform undergoes a major rebranding to X Corp. Musk outlines several ambitious goals for the newly acquired service, including making its recommendation algorithms open-source, aggressively combating spambot accounts, and fundamentally reshaping the platform's approach to free speech.