Explained: What will happen to shareholders of Twitter now that Elon Musk takes over

By Team Newsable | First Published Apr 26, 2022, 9:16 AM IST

Under the terms of the deal, Twitter will become a private company and shareholders will receive $54.20 per share, the company said in a news release. The deal is expected to close this year.

Elon Musk struck a deal on Monday to buy Twitter for roughly $44 billion, in a victory by the world’s richest man to take over the influential social network frequented by world leaders, celebrities and cultural trendsetters.

Twitter is not the biggest social platform — it has more than 217 million daily users, compared with billions for Facebook and Instagram — but it has had an outsized role in shaping narratives around the world. Political leaders have used it as a megaphone, while companies, celebrities and others have employed it for image-making and brand building.

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Musk is not the first Twitter shareholder to express concerns about how the company is run. Elliott Management, an activist investment firm, took a stake in Twitter in 2020, amid reports that it thought the platform had a distracted chief executive in Jack Dorsey and was not adding innovative new products quickly enough. Dorsey survived the initial pressure but left in November last year and his replacement, Parag Agrawal, was promoted to the top post from the position of chief technology officer.

Under the terms of the deal, Twitter will become a private company and shareholders will receive $54.20 per share, the company said in a news release. The deal is expected to close this year.

Musk had also met privately with several large Twitter shareholders in recent days, with some expressing their support for his bid, one of the people said. The two sides did not see regulatory issues, such as an antitrust review, as likely roadblocks to closing the deal.

As is customary once a company agrees to be acquired, the buyer gets to take a closer look at its books to make sure there aren’t any red flags that haven’t come up via the company’s public filings.

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