Billionaire Elon Musk buys off Twitter

Billionaire Elon Musk has bought off Twitter, according to an announcement by twitter’s board of Directors.

According to the board, Elon Musk has acquired the social media platform for $54.20 per share in cash, in a deal valued at approximately $44 billion.

Once the deal is closed, Twitter will become a privately held company.

Twitter stockholders will reportedly receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own upon closing of the proposed transaction.

According to Bret Taylor, Twitter’s Independent Board Chair, the proposed transaction is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.

“The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”

According to Mr Musk, who is the world’s richest man according to Forbes” Twitter had “tremendous potential” that he would unlock.

“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,” said Mr Musk in a statement.

“Also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spambots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.” He said

The Tesla CEO is reported to have an estimated net worth of $273.6bn. He also leads the aerospace firm SpaceX.

Twitter was created by Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams in March 2006 and launched in July of that year. By 2012, more than 100 million users posted 340 million tweets a day, and the service handled an average of 1.6 billion search queries per day in 2013.

Twitter has also ranked as one of the ten most-visited websites and has been described as “the SMS of the Internet”.