Elon Musk to buy Twitter
Updated 6:19 PM EDT, Mon April 25, 2022
Our live coverage has ended. You canread more about Musk’s deal to buy Twitter here.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal was asked during a company town hall Monday if former President Donald Trump would be allowed back on the platform, according to audio of the call obtained by CNN.
Agrawal told staff that that is something they should ask Elon Musk and said, “once the deal closes, we will know what direction the platform will go.”
Agrawal said he expects to spend time with Musk and will tell the billionaire about the principles that have guided Twitter’s decisions.
Later in the call, Agrawal said he was “optimistic” about the future of the company.
Trump wasbanned from Twitter after the Jan. 6 attack on the Capitol.
Twitter may not be a traditional media company, but it has an outsized impact on the media industry. And with his deal to acquire Twitter, Musk is the latest tech billionaire to buy his way to greater influence in the media industry.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos acquired The Washington Post personally (not through Amazon) for $250 million back in 2013. The moverattled the media industry and beyond at the time, as concern mounted over how the billionaire could potentially influence the company. A few years out, however, Bezos’investment in tech and talent has been lauded for driving web traffic and making the news outlet profitable.
Bezos and Musk are not the only tech titans besotted by the idea of owning a media giant. Salesforce founderMarc Benioff bought Time magazine in 2018 for $190 million.
Elon Musk said in a statement Monday that he wants to make Twitter “better than ever” following the announcement that his bid to acquire the company was accepted.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” said Musk.
He continued: “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
He also tweeted out the statement:
🚀💫♥️ Yesss!!! ♥️💫🚀pic.twitter.com/0T9HzUHuh6
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)April 25, 2022
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal is holding an all-hands meeting with staff Monday afternoon at 5 p.m. ET (2 p.m. PT), according to an internal company email obtained by CNN.
“I know this is a significant change and you’re likely processing what this means for you and Twitter’s future,” Agrawal wrote in the email.
Following news that Twitter had agreed to sell itself to Elon Musk, the company’s stock was up nearly 6%, hovering around $51.84, just shy of the offer price.
If approved by shareholders and regulators, the deal will put the world’s richest man in charge of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms. Musk has repeatedly stressed in recent days that his goal is to bolster free speech on the platform and work to “unlock” Twitter’s “extraordinary potential.”
CNN’s Clare Duffy contributed reporting to this post.
White House press secretary Jen Psaki declined to weigh in specifically on news Monday that Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, has reached an agreement to buy Twitter in a deal valued at around $44 billion, instead calling on Congress to increase regulations on social media platforms like Twitter.
“I’m not going to comment on a specific transaction — what I can tell you, as a general matter, no matter who owns or runs Twitter, the President has long been concerned about the power of large social media platforms, what they have, the power they have over our everyday lives, has long argued that tech platforms must be held accountable for the harms they cause,” Psaki told reporters at Monday’s White House press briefing.
“He has been a strong supporter of fundamental reforms to achieve that goal, including reforms to Section 230, enacting antitrust reforms, requiring more transparency, and more,” she continued.
Section 230 is a law that protects companies’ ability to moderate content and that the White House has said in the pastit is reviewing.
Monday’s deal to purchase Twitter caps off a whirlwind news cycle in which the Tesla and SpaceX CEO became one of Twitter’s largest shareholders, was offered and turned down a seat on its board and bid to buy the company — all in less than a month. It’s expected to close this year.
President Biden, Psaki added, is “encouraged” by bipartisan interest in legislating additional reforms for tech platforms, but “in terms of what hypothetical policies might happen, I’m just not going to speak to that at this point.”
It started on April 5, when Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced that Tesla founder Elon Musk will join Twitter’s board of directors — until Musk decided he wouldn’t join and instead buy the company.
Here’s a timeline of how this unfolded in a matter of about 20 days.
April 5:
Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)April 5, 2022
April 10:
Elon has decided not to join our board. I sent a brief note to the company, sharing with you all here.pic.twitter.com/lfrXACavvk
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga)April 11, 2022
April 14:
I made an offerhttps://t.co/VvreuPMeLu
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)April 14, 2022
April 21:
And authenticate all real humans
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)April 21, 2022
April 25:
I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk)April 25, 2022
Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.https://t.co/5iNTtJoEHf
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga)April 25, 2022
Since news of Musk’s bid to buy Twitter was made public more than a week ago, conservatives have been calling on the Tesla CEO toreinstate former President Donald Trump’s account. Trump waspermanently suspended from Twitter shortly after the January 6 insurrection “due to the risk of further incitement of violence.”
Musk has not publicly commented specifically on the matter, but has long been an advocate of what he dubs “free speech” on Twitter. Access to Twitter could prove to be a huge asset for Trump to reach millions of people ahead of a possible run in the 2024 presidential election.
Angelo Carusone, president of media watchdog group Media Matters for America, said in a statement Monday that a Musk takeover of Twitter means Trump “will almost certainly be replatformed in weeks.”
NAACP President Derrick Johnson released a statement Monday following the news that Elon Musk purchased Twitter, saying, “Mr. Musk: free speech is wonderful, hate speech is unacceptable.”
Johnson continued:
“Disinformation, misinformation and hate speech have NO PLACE on Twitter. Do not allow 45 to return to the platform. Do not allow Twitter to become a petri dish for hate speech, or falsehoods that subvert our democracy. Protecting our democracy is of utmost importance, especially as the midterm elections approach. Mr Musk: lives are at risk, and so is American democracy.”
The Dow reversed its nearly 500-point intraday loss on Monday as news broke that Twitter’s board had accepted billionaire Elon Musk’soffer to buy the company and take it private.
Twitter stock was up by about 5.5% on Monday afternoon before trading halted for the news. Musk agreed to pay $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at about $44 billion.
Other tech stocks, such as Microsoft, Alphabet and Amazon, were up after the deal as US markets recovered from a steep drop last week, moving from deep red territory back towards flat numbers.
Long before Elon Muskbought Twitter, the serial entrepreneur told CNN in a 2001 interview at his home that he was “a little tired of the internet.”
At the time, Musk and his then-wife, Justice, were planning on breaking away from Silicon Valley after the success of Musk creating X.com (renamed PayPal). CNN Business dug up the original 2001 interview from our archives.
Watch here:
In a tweet midday Monday ahead of the deal announcement, Elon Musk said he hopes his critics will keep using the platform.
I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” Musk said.
Musk has repeatedly called for the removal of some of Twitter’s content moderation practices.
“Is someone you don’t like allowed to say something you don’t like? And if that is the case, then we have free speech,” Musk said in an interview at the TED conference earlier this month.
However, Musk is also known for targeting critics of his companies, andonce tried to pay off a teenagerwho tracked Musk’s private jet on Twitter to remove his account.
Twitter has agreed to sell itself to Elon Musk in a deal valued at around $44 billion, the companysaid Monday.
The deal caps off a whirlwind news cycle in which the Tesla and SpaceX CEO became one of Twitter’s largest shareholders, was offered and turned down a seat on its board and offered to buy the company — all in less than a month.
The deal comes after Musk revealed last week he had lined up $46.5 billion in financing to acquire the company. Twitter’s board met Sunday to evaluate Musk’s offer.
The deal would put the world’s richest man in charge of one of the world’s most influential social media platforms. Musk has repeatedly stressed in recent days that his goal is to bolster free speech on the platform and work to “unlock” Twitter’s “extraordinary potential.”
“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said his offer letter to Twitter. “However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”
In the days following Musk’s bid, Twitter’s board put in place a so-called poison pill that would make it more difficult for Musk to acquire the company without its approval. There were also questions about whether the company would try to find another buyer.
However, CFRA senior equity analyst Angelo Zino said Monday that Twitter’s board more seriously considering Musk’s offer may have come “from the Board’s realization that an alternative bid from a ‘white knight’ may be difficult to come by, especially following the decline in asset prices from social media companies in recent weeks/months.”
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who has held the role only since November, may not be in the top job much longer after the company agreed to sell itself to Elon Musk.
While it’s not clear exactly what kind ofrelationship Musk has with Agrawal, Musk does have what appears to be a long-running bromance with Twitter cofounder and former CEO Jack Dorsey (over the weekend, Musktweeted at Dorsey complimenting his new “Block Head” title at his financial services firm, Block). And after it was announced that Agrawal would take over Twitter’s CEO role from Dorsey in November, Musk tweeted a meme that equated Agrawal to former Soviet leader Joseph Stalin.
Musk also said in his offer letter to buy Twitter that he does not “have confidence in management.”
Musk is already the CEO of multiple other companies, including Tesla and SpaceX, so he may not want to be in charge of running another one (and Tesla shareholders might object to him taking over the top job at Twitter). But given his stated desire to shake up the platform, it’s possible he will seek to appoint a new leader at the social media company, even if it’s not him.
Some billionaires buy newspapers, magazines and sports teams. Elon Musk is trying to buy a social network that he himself admits might cause much of the world to hate him.
“Everyone will still blame me for everything,” Musk said during an on-stage interview at the TED conference earlier this month. “If I acquire Twitter and something goes wrong, it’s my fault 100%. I think there will be quite a few errors.”
Sounds promising. So why exactly does the world’s richest man — who is already running multiple companies with ambitious goals like taking humans to Mars — want to buy Twitter, a social media platform which, for all its benefits, is facing scrutiny for content issues like hate speech and misinformation, and also fighting to reignite user growth?
Musk has repeatedly stressed in recent days that his goal is to bolster free speech on the platform and work to “unlock” Twitter’s “extraordinary potential.” Others have suggested that Musk — who has 83 million followers on Twitter and has long used it to bolster his personal brand — may be more interested in boosting attention for himself.
To hear Musk tell it, the goal of his Twitter offer is nothing less than protecting civilization as we know it. “My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” Musk said at the TED conference.
Among Musk’s plans for the platform are making its algorithm open source and making it more transparent to users when, for example, a tweet has been emphasized or demoted in their feed. He also said he would want to have more lenient content moderation policies. “I think we want to be very reluctant to delete things and just be very cautious with permanent bans; timeouts are better,” Musk said.
However, it’s not clear that his plans are all that much different from Twitter’s existing strategy. Although Twitter’s algorithm is not currently open source — a term that describes code that is publicly available for anyone to see — leaders at Twitter have expressed support for moving in that direction, and the company often makes clear when it is demoting certain tweets or types of content. Twitter has also erred on the side of labeling, rather than outright removing, much of the content often considered problematic, including some types of misinformation. And it offers several short suspensions to users who violate its rules before removing them.
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