Elon Musk
Elon Musk and his love for Twitter is known to all. The outspoken Tesla CEO, the world's wealthiest person, has often used the microblogging platform to interact with his admirers and haters alike. Late on Monday night, it was announced that he now owns Twitter and he bought the social media platform. He said he wants to buy Twitter because he thinks it's not living up to its potential as a platform for "free speech. But do you know this is not the first time that Musk shared his interest in buying it!
Five years ago in 2017, Musk declared that he loves Twitter. An Internet user quickly promoted that he should buy it. Musk responded by asking, "How much is it?." Well, back then, he must have not got a satisfactory answer. Now in 2022, he placed his bets and bought it for USD 44 billion. Soon after the news was announced, this old tweet of Musk went viral on social media. Take a look:
For the unversed, Twitter will become a privately held company after the sale is closed. Musk, who owns Tesla and SpaceX, built up more than 9 percent in Twitter stock and turned down an offer to join the board before putting in a bid.
An avid Twitter user, Musk had claimed that it needs to be "transformed" into a private company so it can become a forum for free speech.
Musk himself, though, regularly blocks social media users who have criticized him or his company and has used the platform to bully reporters who have written critical articles about him or his company.
Twitter's board at first enacted an anti-takeover measure known as a poison pill that could have made a takeover attempt prohibitively expensive.
But when Musk outlined the financial commitments he'd lined up to back his offer of $46.5 billion — and no other bidders emerged — the board opened negotiations with him.
