London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Wednesday, Jul 23, 2025

Elon Musk, world’s richest man and freedom of speech czar, reaches deal to buy Twitter for $44bn

Elon Musk, world’s richest man and freedom of speech czar, reaches deal to buy Twitter for $44bn

Tesla chief executive will gain control over social network he has criticized over its handling of ‘free speech’

Elon Musk has reached a $44bn deal to buy Twitter in a takeover that will give the world’s richest man control of a social network with more than 200 million users.

The sale will put the Tesla chief executive in charge of a company that he has frequently criticized, claiming it has not lived up to its potential as a platform for “free speech”.

The deal on Monday comes after a dramatic few weeks of speculation about Twitter’s future, triggered by Musk’s emergence as the platform’s largest single shareholder on 4 April. He then declared a takeover bid on 14 April, offering to buy all Twitter’s shares for $54.20 each.

At first, Twitter’s board seemed opposed, enacting an anti-takeover measure known as a poison pill that could have made a takeover attempt prohibitively expensive. But its initial reluctance to accept a transaction appeared to fade after Musk confirmed a funding package for the deal – including $21bn of his own money, alongside debt funding from Morgan Stanley and other financial institutions – and shareholders warmed to it.

“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,” Musk said in a statement posted to Twitter. “Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and users to unlock it,” he added.


Twitter said the transaction had been unanimously approved by its board of directors and was expected to close in 2022, pending regulatory sign-off and the approval of shareholders. The platform has 217 active daily million users.

“Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world,” Twitter’s chief executive, Parag Agrawal, said in a tweet confirming the sale. “Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”

The Musk takeover has been unexpected and controversial amongst Twitter employees. Speaking at an all-hands meeting on Monday following news of the deal, Agrawal told employees that the future direction of the social network was uncertain.

“Once the deal closes, we don’t know which direction the platform will go,” Agrawal said. Musk will join Twitter staff for a question-and-answer session at a later date, the company told employees.

The company, which launched in 2006, currently has a market cap of nearly $40bn. Its co-founder Jack Dorsey stepped down as chief executive officer in November 2021, handing the reins to Agrawal, the company’s former chief technology officer.

Musk is himself a prominent user of the app, with 83m followers, and tweeted as early as 2017 expressing interest in buying the company. He has signalled that Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company in order to build trust with users and do better at serving what he calls the “societal imperative” of free speech.

“I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means,” he tweeted on Monday.

The Twitter headquarters in San Francisco.


It remains to be seen how Musk will reshape the company, but the billionaire has proposed several changes in recent weeks. They include relaxing its content restrictions, ridding the platform of fake and automated accounts, and shifting away from its advertising-based revenue model.

Elaborating on his goals, Musk added on Monday that he wanted 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”.

Musk has long been a popular if contentious figure on the platform. And despite claiming to be a “free speech absolutist”, Musk 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.

The deal is not expected to face serious scrutiny from US competition authorities because Musk’s other major business interests – Tesla, an electric car company, the SpaceX rocket business, and the tunnelling firm the Boring Company – do not compete with Twitter.

It is, however, likely to draw comment from politicians and campaigning bodies given Twitter’s influence as an information source and Musk’s stance on free speech. The purchase also comes amid intensifying criticism of big tech’s power and underscores the ability of wealthy executives to control platforms used by millions.

“No matter who owns or runs Twitter, the president has long been concerned about the power of large social media platforms,” the White House spokeswoman Jen Psaki commented on the purchase on Monday.

Senator Elizabeth Warren called the deal “dangerous for our democracy”. “Billionaires like Elon Musk play by a different set of rules than everyone else, accumulating power for their own gain,” she tweeted.

Rebecca Allensworth, professor of law at Vanderbilt University, described the deal as “troubling” due to the amount of power now wielded by Musk, a concern shared by many others.

“There is something deeply troubling about a privately-held company holding the power Twitter does over public speech, especially if Twitter will be controlled by someone with as idiosyncratic views about speech as Musk. American free speech law is essentially just the first amendment, which only constrains government actors, not a company like Twitter or a person like Elon Musk,” she said.

Speculation has already begun as to whether Musk will reinstate high profile accounts that have previously been removed for violating community guidelines, including that of Donald Trump. Trump was permanently banned from Twitter in 2021 for his use of the platform to incite unrest at the US capitol.

Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has raised concerns about the future direction of the platform.


After the deal was announced, the NAACP released a statement that urged Musk not to allow the 45th president back on to the platform.

“Disinformation, misinformation and hate speech have NO PLACE on Twitter,” the civil rights organization said in a statement. “Do not allow 45 to return to the platform. Do not allow Twitter to become a petri dish for hate speech, or falsehoods that subvert our democracy.”

Trump has so far said he would not return to Twitter if his account were reinstated, telling Fox News on Monday: “I hope Elon buys Twitter because he’ll make improvements to it and he is a good man, but I am going to be staying on Truth,” a reference to his own startup Truth Social.

Suzanne Nossel, chief executive officer of PEN America, a non-profit organization that works to protect freedom of expression in the US, and a member of the Facebook Oversight Board, warned Musk against indulging in a “fantasy” of dismantling moderation guidelines.

Elon Musk will learn the same lesson about self-governing social media as he has about self-driving vehicles, which is that they unavoidably crash. Musk is right that our current systems of content moderation are biased and flawed, but the idea that the rules can be swept away wholesale is fallacy,” Nossel said.

Musk is the world’s wealthiest person, according to Forbes, with a nearly $279bn fortune. He began building his wealth in 1999 when he sold Zip2, an online mapping and business directory, for $307m. He used his share to create what would become PayPal, sold to eBay for $1.5bn in 2002.

That same year, Musk founded Space Exploration Technologies, or SpaceX, after finding that cost constraints were limiting Nasas interplanetary travel. The company eventually developed cost-effective reusable rockets.

In 2004, Musk was courted to invest in Tesla, then a startup trying to build an electric car. Eventually he became CEO and led the company to success as the world’s most valuable automaker and largest seller of electric vehicles.

Some have questioned how Musk will divide his time and attention between all the companies he operates, though his track record of successful ventures is also seen as a positive for Twitter.

Shares of Twitter rose 5% on Monday to $51.50 per share after news of the sale.

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
"Crazy Thing": OpenAI's Sam Altman Warns Of AI Voice Fraud Crisis In Banking
The Podcaster Who Accidentally Revealed He Earns Over $10 Million a Year
Trump Announces $550 Billion Japanese Investment and New Trade Agreements with Indonesia and the Philippines
US Treasury Secretary Calls for Institutional Review of Federal Reserve Amid AI‑Driven Growth Expectations
UK Government Considers Dropping Demand for Apple Encryption Backdoor
Severe Flooding in South Korea Claims Lives Amid Ongoing Rescue Operations
Japanese Man Discovers Family Connection Through DNA Testing After Decades of Separation
Russia Signals Openness to Ukraine Peace Talks Amid Escalating Drone Warfare
Switzerland Implements Ban on Mammography Screening
Japanese Prime Minister Vows to Stay After Coalition Loses Upper House Majority
Pogacar Extends Dominance with Stage Fifteen Triumph at Tour de France
CEO Resigns Amid Controversy Over Relationship with HR Executive
Man Dies After Being Pulled Into MRI Machine Due to Metal Chain in New York Clinic
NVIDIA Achieves $4 Trillion Valuation Amid AI Demand
US Revokes Visas of Brazilian Corrupted Judges Amid Fake Bolsonaro Investigation
U.S. Congress Approves Rescissions Act Cutting Federal Funding for NPR and PBS
North Korea Restricts Foreign Tourist Access to New Seaside Resort
Brazil's Supreme Court Imposes Radical Restrictions on Former President Bolsonaro
Centrist Criticism of von der Leyen Resurfaces as she Survives EU Confidence Vote
Judge Criticizes DOJ Over Secrecy in Dropping Charges Against Gang Leader
Apple Closes $16.5 Billion Tax Dispute With Ireland
Von der Leyen Faces Setback Over €2 Trillion EU Budget Proposal
UK and Germany Collaborate on Global Military Equipment Sales
Trump Plans Over 10% Tariffs on African and Caribbean Nations
Flying Taxi CEO Reclaims Billionaire Status After Stock Surge
Epstein Files Deepen Republican Party Divide
Zuckerberg Faces $8 Billion Privacy Lawsuit From Meta Shareholders
FIFA Pressured to Rethink World Cup Calendar Due to Climate Change
SpaceX Nears $400 Billion Valuation With New Share Sale
Microsoft, US Lab to Use AI for Faster Nuclear Plant Licensing
Trump Walks Back Talk of Firing Fed Chair Jerome Powell
Zelensky Reshuffles Cabinet to Win Support at Home and in Washington
"Can You Hit Moscow?" Trump Asked Zelensky To Make Putin "Feel The Pain"
Irish Tech Worker Detained 100 days by US Authorities for Overstaying Visa
Dimon Warns on Fed Independence as Trump Administration Eyes Powell’s Succession
Church of England Removes 1991 Sexuality Guidelines from Clergy Selection
Superman Franchise Achieves Success with Latest Release
Hungary's Viktor Orban Rejects Agreements on Illegal Migration
Jeff Bezos Considers Purchasing Condé Nast as a Wedding Gift
Ghislaine Maxwell Says She’s Ready to Testify Before Congress on Epstein’s Criminal Empire
Bal des Pompiers: A Celebration of Community and Firefighter Culture in France
FBI Chief Kash Patel Denies Resignation Speculations Amid Epstein List Controversy
Air India Pilot’s Mental Health Records Under Scrutiny
Google Secures Windsurf AI Coding Team in $2.4 Billion Licence Deal
Jamie Dimon Warns Europe Is Losing Global Competitiveness and Flags Market Complacency
South African Police Minister Suspended Amid Organised Crime Allegations
Nvidia CEO Claims Chinese Military Reluctance to Use US AI Technology
Hong Kong Advances Digital Asset Strategy to Address Economic Challenges
Australia Rules Out Pre‑commitment of Troops, Reinforces Defence Posture Amid US‑China Tensions
Martha Wells Says Humanity Still Far from True Artificial Intelligence
×