The acquirement of Twitter by Elon Musk, began on April 14, 2022, and ended on October 27, 2022.He became the company’s largest shareholder with a 9.1 percent ownership stake.
The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, completed his $44bn takeover of Twitter, according to a filing with the US government. He tweeted “the bird is freed” and later said “let the good times roll”.
Musk was invited to join its board of directors which he accepted and on a later date, April 14th, he made an offer to acquire the company for $44 billion.
In a unanimous decision by Twitter on April 25th, the board of directors accepted his offer with the company set to be private.
In July, Musk announced his intention to terminate the agreement claiming that Twitter had breached their agreement by refusing to crack down on spambot accounts.
The company filed a lawsuit against Musk in the Delaware Court of Chancery, thereafter, with a trial scheduled for the week of October 17.
A few weeks before the trial was set to begin, he announced that he would move forward with the acquisition. The deal was closed on October 27, 2022, with Musk becoming Twitter’s new owner and CEO.
The business magnate has since proposed several reforms to twitter, including the creation of a “content moderation council” to handle free speech and $8 charge on verification of a twitter account. He said participants will get priority in mentions, replies and search, and will be able to tweet long videos and audio.
Several top executives including the previous CEO Parag Agrawal have been fired. According to Reuters, Mr. Agrawal and two other executives were escorted out of Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters on Thursday evening.
The multi-billionaire further said that that he would reverse bans on suspended users, which would include former US President Donald Trump, who was excluded following the Capitol riot in January 2021.
He termed the ban as “foolish” stating that he didn’t want Twitter to be a hate platform.
Sharing on his twitter account, Musk said, “Twitter obviously cannot become a free for all hell scape where anything can be said with no consequences!”
Adding to his numerous plans after his take over, Elon Musk has considered putting the entire platform behind a paywall.
According to a report by Plat former, the moves by Elon show the ways that he is using to generate new revenue from the platform he acquired for $44 billion.
Speaking on Sunday, the Tesla CEO said that the users engaging in impersonation without clearly specifying it as a parody account will be permanently suspended without a warning.
Sharing in a separate tweet, Musk said Twitter previously issued a warning before suspension, but as Twitter is rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning.
“Previously, we issued a warning before suspension, but now that we are rolling out widespread verification, there will be no warning. This will be clearly identified as a condition for signing up to Twitter Blue. Any name change at all will cause temporary loss of verified checkmark.
On the topic of banned accounts, he said they will not be allowed back on Twitter until the social media platform has a clear process for doing so.
BY STACY ODHIAMBO