(Bloomberg) -- Billionaire entrepreneur Elon Musk agreed to buy Twitter Inc. for $44 billion, using one of the biggest leveraged buyout deals in history to take private a 16-year-old social networking platform that has become a hub of public discourse ...
Investors will receive $54.20 for each Twitter share they own, the company said in a statement Monday. The price is 38% more than the stock’s close on April 1, the last business day before Musk disclosed a significant stake in the company, sparking a share rally. Twitter shares were halted for the news.Musk, one of Twitter’s most prolific users with more than 83 million followers, began amassing a stake of about 9% in January.
“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,” Musk said in the statement on Monday. “Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
Going private marks a dramatic turnabout for a company that got its start as a messaging service for sharing your status updates with friends, but quickly blossomed into a way for people to broadcast short posts of 140 characters or less to a public following.
As recently as last week there was little clarity on whether Musk’s bid would succeed. The 50-year-old billionaire himself mused at a TED event the day it was announced that even he had doubts about its prospects. Though the stock initially jumped on news of Musk’s stake in the company, shares have traded well below the original offer price of $54.20 since its announcement — a sign investors were skeptical a deal would come to fruition.
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