Elon Musk - latest: Tesla boss ‘will become Twitter CEO when deal is complete’ as billionaires throw cash behind takeover
The billionaire has received $7.1 billion from supporters
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Elon Musk has received $7.1 billion from nearly two dozen investors including Sequoia Capital, Andreessen Horowitz, and others to fund his purchase of Twitter.
The news comes after the billionaire sold nearly $8.5bn worth of Tesla stock.
Qatar - giving $375,000,000 - and Saudi Arabia will also be financing the deal.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, chairman of the board at Kingdom Holding Company and one of Twitter’s largest backers, said he is rolling over his current investment after initially criticising Mr Musk.
Mr Musk will pay $54.20 cash per share for the San Francisco-based company, which will now be taken private before the end of October.
The board announced it had reached a deal with Mr Musk on Monday, and that it represented a 38 per cent premium from Twitter’s closing price on 1 April, the day before the world’s richest person made his move for the company by announcing his nine per cent stake.
Mr Musk will likely make some significant changes to the social media platform, having made several hints in recent months about what his intentions are. It comes after Musk’s friend Dorsey stepped down as CEO and Parag Agrawal took over.
Changes could include a new CEO, worker layoffs and even monetising tweets by charging publishers to embed them, according to some reports.
You can follow all the latest news and developments right here.
Elon Musk calls for Twitter to be ‘politically neutral'
ICYMI: The Tesla boss, who had a $44bn bid for the social media platform accepted earlier this week, gave his latest thought on its political stance in a tweet.
“For Twitter to deserve public trust, it must be politically neutral, which effectively means upsetting the far right and the far left equally,” he wrote on Wednesday.
Elon Musk proves he is an Independent reader
The Tesla titan approved of an Indepndent story on Jim Carrey responding to claims he is one of “several different people” playing Joe Biden.
Mr Musk took to Twitter and responded to the story with a tears of joy and shooting star emojis.
Women’s group responds to Musk going after Twitter’s top lawyer
Women’s group UltraViolet has issued a statement after Elon Musk went after Twitter’s top lawyer, Vijaya Gadde: “Women of color already face disproportionately high levels of vitriol, harassment and bullying on social media - and Elon Musk will make it worse.”
Ms Gadde has faced a wave of online harassment after Mr Musk criticised Twitter, for whom she runs moderation, for suspending the New York Post’s account temporarily over its Hunter Biden stolen laptop coverage.
“Suspending the Twitter account of a major news organization for publishing a truthful story was obviously incredibly inappropriate,” tweeted Mr Musk on Tuesday.
Mr Musk has called for Twitter to adopt a free speech policy, which has led critics to suggest that banned right-wing figures such as Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene could return to the platform.
Why has Elon Musk — the purported champion of free speech — blocked me on Twitter?
ICYMI: It’s not only journalists. Musk has also blocked Public Citizen, a Washington DC-based nonprofit watchdog group that says it has been ‘standing up to corporate power and holding government accountable for 50 years’
Andrew Buncombe has the details.
Why has Elon Musk, champion of free speech, blocked me on Twitter? | Andrew Buncombe
It’s not only journalists. Musk has also blocked Public Citizen, a Washington DC-based nonprofit watchdog group that says it has been ‘standing up to corporate power and holding government accountable for 50 years’
Musk insists right-wing will be unhappy with his Twitter as well as left
The Tesla boss took to Twitter to expand on a nearlier tweet in which he insisted the social media platform should be “politically neutral.”
“Attacks are coming thick and fast, primarily from the left, which is no surprise, however I should be clear that the right will probably be a little unhappy too. My goal is to maximize area under the curve of total human happiness, which means the ~80% of people in the middle,” he tweeted on Wednesday.
Elon Musk claims he is targeted by Bezos-owned Washington Post
ICYMI: Mr Musk made the claim on Twitter on Wednesay.
“The Washington Post targets me relentlessly! Their insults could be higher quality, but some are not bad. I gave them 3 stars on Yelp,” he tweeted.
Jeff Bezos, who owns the newspaper, has lost his title as the world’s richest person to Mr Musk, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
Mass Twitter deactivations after Musk takeover are ‘organic’
ICYMI: In the wake of Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover being announced, thousands of accounts appeared to diappear from the platform.
The follower counts of some high-profile users, including Katy Perry and Taylor Swift, dropped by thousands. Even the most popular account on Twitter, that of former US president Barack Obama, saw their followe counts take a hit.
There was speculation that it was either a purge on the part of Twitter, or the result of hundreds of thousands of people leaving the platform in protest to the takeover. Now Twitter is saying that the flctuations in followers for these big accounts come mostly from “organic” closures.
“While we continue to take action on accounts that violate our spam policy which can affect follower counts, these fluctuations appear to largely be a result of an increase in new account creation and deactivation,” Twitter said in a statement, adding that it was looking into the “recent fluctuations in follower counts”.
You can read more about it here.
Elon Musk forbidden from disparaging Twitter in buyout deal
ICYMI: More details about Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover have been revealed in a US Securities and Exchanges Commission document today, including a clause that prevents the billionaire from being “disparaging about the company”.
It also shows that should either Musk or Twitter pull out of the deal, they would be forced to pay the other party $1 billion.
You can read the story here.
Elon Musk’s Twitter deal forbids him ‘disparaging the company’
Many high-profile employees at Twitter receive abuse after Musk replies to right-wing commentators
Elon Musk posts ‘left-wing bias’ meme featuring Twitter executive on platform
The social media company’s prospective new owner tweeted the Joe Rogan meme, which features a picture of Vijaya Gadde, Twitter’s top lawyer, to his account on Wednesday.
Elon Musk suggests new name for Trump’s Truth Social app as he accuses Twitter of censorship
Elon Musk has suggested a new name for Donald Trump’s Truth Social app as he accused Twitter, which has just agreed to buy for $44bn, of censorship.
The Tesla boss, whose takeover of the San Francisco-based platform was announced earlier this week, took to Twitter to compare it to to the former president’s own social media company.
Elon Musk suggests new name for Truth Social app and accuses Twitter of censorship
Elon Musk has suggested a new name for Donald Trump’s Truth Social app as he accused Twitter, which has just agreed to buy for $44bn, of censorship.
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