Posted on April 14, 2022, 12:41 PMUpdated on April 14, 2022 at 6:29 PM
The final act of the battle for Twitter has begun. Elon Musk has made a ‘final’ takeover offer for the entire company. The billionaire had become the main shareholder of the social network by early April by acquiring 9.2% of the capital †
In a letter to the US market regulator, the Tesla CEO justifies this takeover attempt by his concerns about freedom of expression, which would be jeopardized by moderation on the social network. The group’s employees have expressed concern about the billionaire’s controversial views. The values do not match those defended by Twitter, they believe.
$43 billion
The billionaire offers to pay $54.20 a share, which Twitter would appreciate at $43 billion said Bloomberg. This represents a 38% premium to the share’s closing price at 1er April, before formalizing his entry into the capital. The billionaire has indicated that he will resell his shares in the social network if he fails to take over the entire company.
Elon Musk’s net worth is $260 billion. However, this operation is not automatic. “He will have to sell a significant portion of Tesla to buy Twitter, or take on debt with Tesla stock as collateral,” Neil Campling of Mirabeau Equity Research told Bloomberg.
” Freedom of speech “
In a letter to the American regulator, Elon Musk justifies this acquisition with one sentence. “I invested in Twitter because I believe the company can become the platform for freedom of expression around the world and I believe that freedom of expression is essential for a functioning democracy,” he wrote.
But voices are rising on the social network to criticize the billionaire’s overly restrictive interpretation of free speech. “Effective moderation in itself does not violate freedom of expression,” writes Samidh Chakrabarti, the former director of ethics at Facebook, who has since left the platform and criticized his former employers.
“Anyone who doesn’t understand this shows the same understanding of social issues as a stoned high school student and has never spent five minutes working on trust and security issues,” he continues.
In recent years, Twitter has rolled out several features to improve the quality of the discussions on its platform. Users can now report misleading information and the social network started flank a label tweets with misinformation about the coronavirus pandemic. Users can also control who can respond to their tweets, a useful option for those who suffer from harassment on the platform.
Irregular Behavior
Ever since his participation on Twitter was made public, Elon Musk’s behavior has been a cause for concern for the company’s management and employees. Initially, the company had announced that Tesla’s CEO would be appointed to the social network’s board of directors.
She was reconsidered his decision after a weekend the billionaire had partly devoted to publicly criticizing the social network. The latter “dies” because the most followed accounts rarely post on the platform, he had noted in particular. Elon Musk subsequently deleted his tweets.
The billionaire, who is followed by more than 82 million people on the platform, had also asked his followers if Twitter’s headquarters should be turned into a shelter for the homeless, or if the social network should roll out a feature that allows them to post their tweets. edit. after they are shipped.
Victory probably?
Like the markets, analysts are betting on Elon Musk’s win. “We believe this soap opera will end with Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter following this hostile takeover of the company,” write Wedbush Securities’ Dan Ives, Ygal Arounian and John Katsingris.
“It will be difficult for another bidder or consortium to emerge and the board of directors will likely be forced to accept this offer or take active steps to sell Twitter,” the experts said.
