Financial Times: 4/26/2022

Twitter’s board of directors is edging closer to selling the social media company to Elon Musk for $43.4bn, a deal that would give the world’s richest man control of what he has called the world’s “de facto public town square”.

Twitter’s board was meeting on Monday to finalise the terms of an agreement with Musk, said people briefed on the matter. It added that a deal — which would be one of the largest buyouts in history — could be reached as early as Monday evening or by Thursday, when Twitter reports quarterly earnings.

The board said there was still a chance the deal could fall apart.

If Musk does take Twitter private — a feat that few on Wall Street thought possible given the size of the transaction — it could turn the maverick Tesla chief executive into a social media baron with the potential to shape politics, business and culture.

The takeover of one of the most widely viewed news sources by Musk would come after several tech billionaires have acquired marquee media assets in recent years, including Jeff Bezos, the founder of Amazon who owns the Washington Post; Steve Jobs’s widow Laurene Powell Jobs, who controls the Atlantic; and Salesforce’s Marc Benioff, who bought Time in 2018.

Musk has said his bid for Twitter is primarily motivated by his desire to overhaul its content moderation policies and promote free speech on the platform.

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