It's official! Elon Musk acquires Twitter for $44 billion

Elon Musk, the world's richest man, has finally entered into an agreement to acquire Twitter for $44 billion, three weeks after buying a giant stake in the social media platform. The publicly listed firm will now become a private company owned by Tesla's CEO, who offered to buy at $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at around $44 billion.

“Twitter, Inc. (NYSE: TWTR) today announced that it has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk, for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion. Upon completion of the transaction, Twitter will become a privately held company,” the micro-blogging site says in a release on April 25.

As per the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of the company that they own following closing of the proposed transaction. The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter's closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Musk publicly disclosed his 9% stake in Twitter.

Parag Agrawal, Twitter's CEO, says, "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."

Commenting on the development, Musk says, “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”.

"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 added.

Bret Taylor, Twitter's independent board chair, says, "The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon's proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter's stockholders."

As per the release, the deal has been unanimously approved by the Twitter board of directors and is expected to close in 2022, subject to stockholders and other requisite approvals.

Musk has secured $25.5 billion of fully committed debt and margin loan financing and is providing an approximately $21.0 billion equity commitment. There are no financing conditions to the closing of the transaction, Twitter says in a statement.