Musk's acquisition of Twitter appears to be proceeding at the original $44 billion price tag

By: Mark Jessy

October 6, 2022 11:24 PM

On October 4, Twitter announced its intention to close the transaction with Elon Musk to purchase Twitter at $54.20 per share, suggesting that the company is prepared to move forward with the deal.

Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla and a billionaire, has made an unexpected about-face and now appears poised to complete his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, purported spam bots and fake accounts and all.

Musk is prepared to "proceed to closing of the transaction contemplated by the April 25, 2022 Merger Agreement," as stated in a notice filed by his attorneys with the Delaware Chancery Court on October 3.

After months of legal wrangling with the social media platform, during which Musk tried to back out of the deal due to Twitter's lack of transparency regarding spam bots, fake accounts, and the company's financial health, a court date to settle the matter has been set for October 17.

Musk has proposed a deal, but it's contingent on an immediate stay of the action, trial postponement, and the provision of financing.

"As of their Oct. 4 Twitter post, which announced their intention to close the transaction at $54.20 per share, Twitter appears ready to accept the terms of the deal."

It is unclear if Musk's change of heart was motivated by his upcoming court date. The founder of Tesla and SpaceX, however, has already hinted at his intentions for the site once he has full control.

Musk has not yet revealed the nature of the proposed multipurpose X app beyond the cryptic tweet, but he did say, "Twitter probably accelerates X by 3 to 5 years, but I could be wrong," in a subsequent tweet on October 4.

According to a transcript of phone recordings, Musk once considered using blockchain technology to charge users of Twitter 0.1 Dogecoin (DOGE) to tweet or retweet in order to discourage automated accounts.

You'll be able to avoid most spam and automated accounts if you pay a small fee to have your message added to the chain. Musk said on page 98 of the transcript, "There is no throat to choke, so free speech is guaranteed."

Later, he came to the conclusion that a blockchain-based Twitter might be impractical at the present time.

Twitter users' reactions to the possibility that Musk will acquire the service have been mixed.

Bill Markus, the man behind the dogecoin cryptocurrency and Shibetoshi Nakamoto to his 1.7 million Twitter followers, declared that "if elon musk makes twitter better, then twitter will be better," adding:

"If Elon Musk destroys Twitter, we won't have to listen to the idiocy of its users any longer. This is a situation in which everyone benefits."

The outlook of some users was less optimistic, with one person saying he didn't think "anyone who values @Twitter at all would want @elonmusk to have anything to do with it."

Nasdaq reports that in the last 24 hours, Twitter's stock has risen $22.24, bringing the price to $52 per share.

According to CoinGecko, Dogecoin's price has increased by 8% to $0.06 at the time of writing, continuing a trend of price increases tied to Musk's behavior.