Twitter’s board of directors is expected to announce today that they have accepted Elon Musk’s multi-billion dollar offer to buyout the social media platform.
“The two sides worked through the night to hash out a deal that would be valued at $54.20 a share, or $44 billion,” The Wall Street Journal reported. “Assuming there isn’t a last-minute snag, the deal is expected to be announced after the market closes Monday, if not sooner.”
Twitter’s board of directors initially appeared poised to do everything in its power, including adopting a poison pill, to stop Musk from buying out the company with his unsolicited $43 billion dollar offer earlier this month.
However, things changed after Musk disclosed in a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing last week that he had secured more than $46.5 billion in financing to take over the company, including $13 billion from Morgan Stanley, $12.5 billion from other banks, and $21 billion from himself.
Musk contacted the The Babylon Bee earlier this year, before buying a large portion of the company, after the company said that they had been suspended for a satirical article that jokingly named Health and Human Services Assistant Secretary Rachel Levine “Man of the Year.”
“Musk reached out to us before he polled his followers about Twitter’s commitment to free speech,” Seth Dillon, CEO of The Babylon Bee, tweeted. “He wanted to confirm that we had, in fact, been suspended. He even mused on that call that he might need to buy Twitter. Now he’s the largest shareholder and has a seat on the board.”
Musk has hinted at and in some cases plainly stated changes that will be coming to Twitter if he takes over the company, including, loosening up the platform’s content moderators, making the platform’s algorithms open-sourced, eliminating bots, and authenticating real humans on the platform.
News also broke this week that Musk’s SpaceX signed its first ever deal with a major U.S. airline to provide wireless internet to passengers for free using the Starlink satellite network.
The deal with Hawaiian Airlines, which could be implemented as soon as next year, is expected to increase pressure on rival airlines to provide free Wi-Fi for passengers.
“Hawaiian doesn’t currently offer inflight Wi-Fi and has an extensive network of flights over the Pacific Ocean, serving the mainland U.S., Japan, Australia and New Zealand, among other destinations, from Hawaii,” CNBC reported. “It plans to offer Starlink connectivity on its flights out of its home state to cities throughout the mainland U.S. and to its international destinations.”
This report has been updated to include additional information.