Elon Musk Buys TwitterElon Musk and Twitter Reach Deal for Sale

Follow our live news updates on Elon Musk’s Twitter deal.

Musk’s deal for Twitter is worth about $44 billion.

Image
Elon Musk, with more than 83 million followers on Twitter, has said he wants to “transform” the social media platform by taking it private.Credit...Getty Images

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 agreed to sell itself to Mr. Musk for $54.20 a share, a 38 percent premium over the company’s share price this month before he revealed he was the firm’s single largest shareholder. It would be the largest deal to take a company private — something Mr. Musk has said he will do with Twitter — in at least two decades, according to data compiled by Dealogic.

“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,” Mr. Musk said in a statement announcing the deal. “Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

The deal, which has been unanimously approved by Twitter’s board, is expected to close this year, subject to a vote of Twitter shareholders and certain regulatory approvals.

The blockbuster agreement caps what had seemed an improbable attempt by the famously mercurial Mr. Musk, 50, to buy the social media company — and immediately raises questions about what he will do with the platform and how his actions will affect online speech globally.

The billionaire, who has more than 83 million followers on Twitter and has romped across the service hurling gibes and memes, has repeatedly said he wants to “transform” the platform by promoting more free speech and giving users more control over what they see on it. By taking the company private, Mr. Musk could work on the service out of sight of the prying eyes of investors, regulators and others.

Yet scrutiny will likely be intense. 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.

In recent years, Twitter has also become a lightning rod for controversy, as some users spread misinformation and other toxic content on the service. Former President Donald J. Trump frequently turned to Twitter to insult and inflame, before getting barred from the platform after the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol last year. The company has repeatedly been forced to create policies on the fly to deal with unexpected situations.

In a statement, Bret Taylor, Twitter’s chairman, said the board had “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.”

Mr. Musk himself has had a rocky relationship with online speech. This year, he tried to quash a Twitter account that tracked the movements of his private jet, citing personal and safety reasons. On Monday, he tweeted that he hoped his worst critics would remain on Twitter because “that is what free speech means.”

“Without any conditions for Musk to purchase Twitter, the platform’s community standards and recourse to ban users who violate those standards, Twitter could set a dangerous precedent for other social media companies to follow,” said Bridget Todd, director at UltraViolet, a women’s rights organization. “This is a massively slippery slope.”

Beyond speech issues, Twitter faces questions about its business. For years, the company has struggled to gain new users and to keep people coming back to the service. Its advertising business, which is the main way Twitter makes revenue, has been inconsistent. Twitter has not turned a profit for eight of the last 10 years.

What is Musk buying? A sporadically profitable social company.

As a social network, Twitter is an influential platform that sets the agenda for many in business, politics and society. As a business, it’s a sporadically profitable company with unpredictable cash flow.

Twitter’s annual net profit

Source: FactSet

By The New York Times

Twitter’s financial prospects probably aren’t what attracted Elon Musk.

“I don’t care about the economics at all,” he said at a conference shortly after announcing his offer. And in the statement announcing that Twitter’s board had accepted Mr. Musk’s offer, he mentioned free speech, open-source algorithms and other nonfinancial features of Twitter’s operations that he said have “tremendous potential.”

Twitter reports its first-quarter earnings on Thursday. Analysts expect the company to have generated a profit of nearly $40 million on $1.2 billion in revenue, according to FactSet. Twitter made a profit of more than $140 million in the same quarter last year.

Perhaps more important, as it prepares to take on billions in debt that Mr. Musk raised to finance his purchase, analysts expect Twitter to have recorded $230 million in free cash flow in the first quarter, a bit stronger than last year.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

How Twitter’s staff reacted at a meeting after the announcement.

Twitter’s chief executive, Parag Agrawal, met with employees on Monday afternoon to discuss the sale of the social media company to Elon Musk. Mr. Agrawal was joined by Bret Taylor, the chair of Twitter’s board, for the employee question-and-answer session.

In a nearly hourlong meeting, employees grilled Mr. Agrawal and Mr. Taylor about how the deal came to be, what would happen to their compensation and jobs, and how Mr. Musk might change Twitter.

“It’s important to acknowledge that all of you have many different feelings about what is happening,” Mr. Agrawal said, according to two people who attended the meeting and were not authorized to speak publicly. “Some of you are concerned, some of you are excited, and some of you are waiting to see how this goes. I know this affects all of you personally.”

“It is an emotional day,” Mr. Taylor added, “and I just want to acknowledge it.” A Twitter spokesman declined to comment on the meeting.

Employees had been frustrated that Twitter management was silent as it hashed out the terms of the agreement with Mr. Musk, who has said that he would change much about the way Twitter operates, including the policies it uses to moderate tweets. In a statement on Monday, Mr. Musk said he would focus on “new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots and authenticating all humans.”

Twitter workers have fretted about the impact on their stock compensation as Mr. Musk transformed Twitter into a private company, and about the cultural changes he would cause. But others have celebrated Mr. Musk’s bid for the company and said they believed his impact would be positive.

Mr. Agrawal told employees that their stock options would convert to cash when the deal with Mr. Musk closes, which he estimated would take three to six months. Employees would receive their same benefits packages for a year after the deal was finalized, Mr. Agrawal added, according to the two people familiar with the meeting.

In response to a question from an employee about whether former President Donald J. Trump would be allowed back on Twitter, Mr. Agrawal deferred, leaving the question for Mr. Musk to answer once he takes over the company. “We constantly evolve our policies,” Mr. Agrawal said. “Once the deal closes, we don’t know what direction this company will go in.”

Mr. Taylor addressed employees’ concerns about his silence. “I know there were a ton of twists and turns along the way, all of it in public, and I know we weren’t able to share all the info with you,” but he and Mr. Agrawal were bound by their fiduciary duty to shareholders to keep quiet and not share updates with employees, he said.

Twitter’s board of directors will be disbanded when the company goes private, Mr. Taylor said. Although the board had enacted a defensive tactic known as a “poison pill” to block Mr. Musk from acquiring more Twitter shares, Mr. Taylor said the move was not intended to prevent Mr. Musk from buying the company but simply to put the negotiation process back in the board’s control.

Mr. Agrawal told employees that they should continue to work on their current projects, and that he would try to arrange time for them to ask questions of Mr. Musk. He confirmed that he would keep working, too, remaining as chief executive at least until the deal with Mr. Musk closes.

“He wants Twitter to be a powerful, positive force in the world, just like all of us,” Mr. Agrawal said of Mr. Musk, noting that he had spoken with the billionaire only a few times and was drawing assumptions from those conversations. “He believes Twitter matters.”

He urged employees to “operate Twitter as we always have,” adding that “how we run the company, the decisions we make and the positive changes we drive — that will be on us, and under our control.”

Regulators are unlikely to block Musk’s purchase of Twitter, former officials say.

Image
The size of Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter will require them to submit the deal for review by the Federal Trade Commission, above, or the Justice Department.Credit...Stefani Reynolds for The New York Times

Regulators may examine Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter but are unlikely to sue to block it, former antitrust officials said on Monday.

Bill Baer, who led the Justice Department’s antitrust division during the Obama administration, said enforcers would “look hard to see whether there is a risk to competition and to consumers.” The big price tag, roughly $44 billion, will require Twitter and Mr. Musk to submit the deal for review by the Justice Department or the Federal Trade Commission, the two agencies that regulate acquisitions.

Officials at both have pledged to take a closer look at how mergers and acquisitions fuel concentration in the technology industry. The F.T.C. has sued Facebook on the grounds that the company’s purchase of Instagram and WhatsApp stamped out possible future competitors.

But Mr. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter isn’t the kind of deal the government usually challenges. The government most commonly intervenes when a company is buying a competitor. It also sometimes challenges deals when the acquisition will unfairly benefit the purchaser in another part of its business. Mr. Musk’s two major holdings — the electric carmaker Tesla and the rocket company SpaceX — don’t compete with Twitter, and it is not clear that he will try to link them to the social network in any way.

“It seems to me he has a major stake in two transportation companies at the moment,” said William Kovacic, a former chair of the F.T.C. “And it’s hard to see how Twitter has much to do with either one of them.”

A spokeswoman for the Justice Department and a spokesman for the F.T.C. declined to comment.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Musk’s takeover of Twitter gets the full Twitter treatment.

Twitter users voiced a mix of excitement, worry and skepticism on Monday about Elon Musk’s takeover of the site. And perhaps unsurprisingly, the reaction reflected the divided political and cultural nature of the running conversation on the platform.

The news generated multiple trending topics on Twitter, including Mr. Musk’s name and the hashtags #RIPTwitter and #twittersold.

Many raised questions about Mr. Musk’s plans for the company.

Jack Dorsey, a founder of Twitter who twice served as its chief executive and is on the company’s board, tweeted a link to the Radiohead song “Everything in Its Right Place” and thanked Mr. Musk “for getting the company out of an impossible situation.”

“This is the right path,” he added. “I believe it with all my heart.”

John Scott-Railton, a researcher at the University of Toronto’s Citizen Lab, wrote: “Does Musk plan to let Trump back on the platform? Will he look at the DMs of perceived enemies?” he asked, referring to Twitter’s private, direct messaging feature.

Officials and policymakers, in the United States and beyond, shared their opinions, showing how the site had become a sort of political battleground.

Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, posted a poll for Twitter followers, asking: “Is Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter a good thing?” The two answer choices — “Yes” and “No, I hate free speech” — seemed to suggest his support for the move.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, Republican of Florida, wrote that Elon Musk’s offer to buy Twitter was “a good deal for shareholders and raises the prospect that the platform will be a place where free speech can thrive, not a tool for narrative enforcement.”

Nigel Farage, the British politician who pushed for a hard-line break with the European Union, wrote on Twitter: “Great news. Many congrats, Elon Musk. Let’s hope this marks a turning point.”

On the other side of the political spectrum, lawmakers were concerned about Mr. Musk’s motives and his wealth. “Tax the rich,” wrote Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington. “It’s absurd that one person can afford to buy Twitter for more than $40 billion while working families across this country have to choose every day between buying groceries or their prescription drugs.”

Senator Elizabeth Warren, Democrat of Massachusetts, shared a similar message: “This deal is dangerous for our democracy. Billionaires like Elon Musk play by a different set of rules than everyone else, accumulating power for their own gain. We need a wealth tax and strong rules to hold Big Tech accountable.”

Robert Reich, a labor secretary under former President Bill Clinton, touched on many progressives’ fears when he wrote on the site: “When billionaires like Elon Musk justify their motives by using ‘freedom,’ beware. What they actually seek is freedom from accountability.”

In the business world, allies of Mr. Musk were optimistic. Keith Rabois, a venture capitalist who worked at PayPal with Mr. Musk, earlier on Monday posted, “Ok, now I can finally start to Tweet.”

The entertainment world also took notice. Ice Cube, the rapper and actor, wrote on Twitter: “Free at last!” He tagged Mr. Musk and wrote, “Take off my shadow ban homie,” referring to a subtle form of limiting a user’s posts without letting them know.

Others voiced fears about harassment on the platform, after Mr. Musk said he would change content moderation. Users of social media sites like Twitter, Instagram and TikTok have long complained that harassment is rampant, even with current content moderation efforts.

Dr. Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher who has frequently spoken publicly about receiving threats online after speaking about pandemic safety measures, has said he is forced to block two to four people or groups most days “due to their menacing tweets or threats.” He said on Twitter that he would seek an alternative to the site if the hateful responses to him significantly increased.

And some voiced concerns that people would leave the platform. “This is like a season finale of Twitter,” wrote Jane Manchun Wong, a technology blogger and researcher.

But others called quitting Twitter a dramatic response. “I doubt anyone’s really leaving Twitter,” read a post from the Twitter account for Spawn Wave, a YouTube platform mostly for tech reviews and video game content. “There’s just too much stuff for us to complain about nowadays.”

What would it mean if Trump returned to Twitter?

Image
Former President Donald J. Trump at the Delaware County Fairgrounds in Delaware, Ohio, on Saturday.Credit...Maddie McGarvey for The New York Times

Elon Musk’s impending purchase of Twitter, should his takeover go through as planned, could have a seismic effect on American politics over the long term. But there’s one way in which the Tesla mogul could have an immediate impact: by bringing back Donald J. Trump.

His return could cut both ways, Blake Hounshell, the New York Times On Politics editor, writes. Though people who have been recipients of the former president’s Twitter attacks would prefer he stay off the platform, voters have consistently told pollsters that they disapprove of Mr. Trump’s tweets, so his presence could also redound to the benefit of Democrats who are in desperate political need of a villain.

Mr. Trump told Fox News on Monday that he would not return to Twitter. But Truth Social, his own Twitter-like platform, has struggled to gain traction since its introduction this year, and an overhaul of Twitter’s speech policies could undermine the new site’s positioning as a haven for persecuted conservatives.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Our reporters discuss how ownership by Musk may change Twitter.

Kate Conger and Lauren Hirsch, two New York Times writers who have been covering Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter, went on Twitter Spaces on Monday — after a long day of reporting — to answer questions from users about what the planned sale would mean for the social media platform. Their discussion was hosted by Sheera Frenkel, who also covers technology for The Times.

Answering Questions About Elon Musk’s Deal to Buy Twitter

Sheera Frenkel hosts an interview on Twitter Spaces with Kate Conger and Lauren Hirsch, who have been reporting on Mr. Musk’s bid for Twitter and what it means for the company.

Kate Conger: Twitter is sort of a strange and unique creature, and so is Elon. I think he is so hands on with the companies that he runs. And people who work for him have talked about him being, you know, almost too hands on and micromanaging sometimes over decisions. But he’s just very, very involved in what goes on in his companies. And so I think we can probably expect to see more of the same with Twitter.

Lauren Hirsch: One thing that he has been fairly vague on is the actual business model at play and how he’s looking to make money. I was looking at some of the old numbers that Twitter brought in when it had kind of looser policies around content, and they actually began to stall in revenue and began to lose users. So one thing that I’m really curious about is to what extent, well, loosening up on moderation impacts the business and how — or if, frankly — he’s taken that into account as he’s kind of designing a broader economic plan with the new business that he now owns.

Sheera Frenkel: Removing Trump from the platform wasn’t a black or white decision. It wasn’t that he tweeted something that was against the law. It was a calculation made by people at Twitter after a series of tweets that they saw by Trump that made them feel that they should suspend his account. And I think it’s left a lot of people on Twitter asking why Elon Musk wants to own a company that constantly has to make difficult decisions like this.

4 ways Twitter could change under Elon Musk.

Image
Elon Musk has said he doesn’t trust Twitter’s current leadership to make necessary changes to promote free speech on the platform.Credit...Ryan Lash/Ted Conferences, via Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Elon Musk can at times be inscrutable, and his politics are elusive, which has made it somewhat difficult to determine exactly what the billionaire would do if he successfully acquired Twitter. But over the past weeks and months, as he neared Monday’s deal with the company, Mr. Musk has given more hints about what he would change about Twitter — in interviews, regulatory filings and, of course, on his Twitter account.

Here are the main areas Mr. Musk could seek to address:

Free speech and content moderators. Mr. Musk has frequently expressed concern that Twitter’s content moderators go too far and intervene too much on the platform, which he sees as the internet’s “de facto town square.”

He brought up those concerns once again in the release announcing the agreement: “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,” Mr. Musk said.

“I 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 spam bots, and authenticating all humans” he added. “Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

In a tweet on Monday, ahead of the announcement of his agreement with Twitter, Mr. Musk said he hoped even his “worst critics” continued to use the platform “because that is what free speech means.”

The Trump question. Mr. Musk has not commented publicly on how he would handle the former President Donald Trump’s banned Twitter account. But his free speech comments have stoked speculation that Twitter under his ownership might reinstate Mr. Trump, who was barred from the platform last year. After the Jan. 6 riot at the Capitol, Twitter said Mr. Trump had violated its policies by inciting violence among his supporters. Facebook also banned Mr. Trump for the same reason.

The former president, who was known for tweets that criticized opponents and sometimes announced policy changes, is also trying to get his own social media site off the ground. His start-up, Truth Social, has struggled to attract users, and the problem could get worse now that Mr. Musk has suggested changing content moderation rules on Twitter. Mr. Trump said in a recent interview that he probably wouldn’t rejoin Twitter.

The algorithm. At a TED conference this month, he elaborated on his plans to make the company’s algorithm an open-source model, which would allow users to see the code showing how certain posts came up in their timelines.

He said the open-source method would be better than “having tweets sort of be mysteriously promoted and demoted with no insight into what’s going on.”

Mr. Musk has also pointed to the politicization of the platform before, and recently tweeted that any social media platform’s policies “are good if the most extreme 10 percent on left and right are equally unhappy.”

Who uses the platform and how. Before Mr. Musk offered to buy Twitter this month, he expressed concern about the relevance of the platform.

When an account posted a list of the 10 most followed Twitter accounts, including former President Barack Obama and the pop stars Justin Bieber and Katy Perry, Mr. Musk responded and wrote: “Most of these ‘top’ accounts tweet rarely and post very little content. Is Twitter dying?”

More recently, the Tesla chief executive promised in a tweet Thursday that he would “defeat the spam bots or die trying!”

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Here’s what we know about how Musk will pay for Twitter.

The biggest question Wall Street has been asking since Elon Musk said he wanted to buy Twitter was: How would he fund such a deal? Mr. Musk is the richest person in the world, with a net worth well north of $200 billion. But his wealth is mostly tied up in Tesla stock.

According to securities filings, Mr. Musk is paying with $13 billion in bank loans, plus another $12.5 billion in loans against his stock in Tesla. He has pledged another $21 billion in cash to buy the rest of Twitter’s equity.

Mr. Musk did not answer one of the biggest remaining questions on Monday: the source of that $21 billion. One of the most obvious paths would be to sell shares in Tesla, which were trading at $978 a share on Monday afternoon. He also owns various other private companies, including the Boring Company, a tunnel development company recently valued at almost $6 billion, and SpaceX, which was valued at $100 billion last year. He could sell stakes in those companies to generate cash.

Twitter’s closing price on Monday suggests that traders think this deal is real.

Twitter’s share price rose throughout the day on Monday as a deal with Elon Musk appeared increasingly likely. It gained more ground after the acquisition was announced, closing up 5.7 percent at $51.70 per share.

Twitter’s share price

Source: Sentieo

By The New York Times

That’s not far below the $54.20 price agreed to in the deal with Mr. Musk, which shareholders will receive when the acquisition is made official and Twitter becomes a private company. The share price is also closer to Mr. Musk’s offer than it was at any other time during the takeover saga, a sign that investors ultimately expect the deal to be sealed with a vote from Twitter shareholders and subsequent regulatory checks.

When Mr. Musk announced his “best and final” offer at $54.20 on April 14, traders were more skeptical. For days after, Twitter’s shares traded in the mid-40s, far from Mr. Musk’s bid price, signaling that the markets weren’t sure the negotiations would yield an agreement on those terms. After all, Twitter’s board had announced a so-called poison pill defense maneuver, making it harder for Mr. Musk to get his way without approval from the board.

But then, Mr. Musk detailed the financial commitments from banks to help finance his offer, marking a turning point in the negotiations. A deal has now been agreed upon, and investors think that there is little to stop it from taking place.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Less moderation could conflict with new European regulations.

Image
The European Union headquarters in Brussels. Under a new law, Twitter and other social media companies with more than 45 million users in the E.U. will be required to conduct annual risk assessments about the spread of harmful content on their platforms.Credit...John Thys/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Elon Musk made a centerpiece of his bid for Twitter the need to restrain what he sees as overly aggressive content moderation policies that limit what people can say on the site. He may face a major challenge fulfilling such a dream in Europe.

On Saturday, European policymakers reached an agreement on landmark new legislation, called the Digital Services Act, which requires social media platforms like Twitter to more aggressively police their services for hate speech, misinformation and illicit content.

Under the new law, Twitter and other social media companies with more than 45 million users in the E.U. will be required to conduct annual risk assessments about the spread of harmful content on their platforms and outline plans to combat the problem. If they are not seen as doing enough, the companies can be fined up to 6 percent of global revenue, or even be banned from the E.U. for repeat offenses.

The shifting laws in Europe illustrate the broader legal challenges Mr. Musk would inherit if he closes a deal to buy Twitter. Rather than having a single unified approach to policing its platform, the company has had to adjust based on the different laws where it operates. In Germany, Twitter removes flagged hate speech, racism and references to Nazism. In countries like Turkey, the company faces pressure to remove content critical of the ruling government. In Russia, the service has been largely blocked.

Tweets about Bill Gates may hint at Musk’s leadership style.

Over the weekend, as negotiations for his takeover of Twitter were approaching their final stages, Elon Musk took a shot at fellow billionaire Bill Gates in a series of high-profile tweets. The messages were a reflection of Mr. Musk’s freewheeling style on the social network, where he has more than 80 million followers, mixing serious messages and more sophomoric material.

Mr. Musk said Mr. Gates had taken a short position in Tesla’s stock, betting that it would fall. Mr. Musk was responding to a tweet that included screenshots of texts he apparently exchanged with Mr. Gates about potential philanthropic projects. Minutes later, he mocked Mr. Gates’s physical appearance in a tweet that got 1.1 million “likes.”

On Sunday, before a pivotal meeting between him and Twitter’s board, Mr. Musk tweeted that he was “moving on” from “making fun of Gates for shorting Tesla while claiming to support climate change action.”

The DealBook newsletter notes that the tweets may be a glimpse at how Twitter would run under Mr. Musk’s ownership. Critics say they were just the latest example of Mr. Musk using the platform, and his enormous following on it, as a bully pulpit, whether directed at billionaires or others.

Mr. Musk has said he wants Twitter to fulfill its “societal imperative” as a platform for free speech. But as DealBook has reported, that raises questions about what will happen to Twitter under his watch, given the tone he is setting and the problems that plagued the network’s previous chief executive, Jack Dorsey, before he embraced a more rules-based approach to content moderation.

Mr. Dorsey had said that he “didn’t fully predict or understand the real-world negative consequences” of a more unfettered service.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

The deal could be a threat to Trump’s social media venture.

Image
The launch of Truth Social, former President Donald J. Trump’s social media project, has been marred by outages, long wait lists and underwhelming enthusiasm from users.Credit...Dado Ruvic/Reuters

Truth Social is slow and clunky. Its audience participation remains low. Two top executives have left. And the merger that could bring $1.3 billion in desperately needed cash to former President Donald J. Trump’s social media project seems far from completion.

And that was before Elon Musk entered the picture, The Times’s Matthew Goldstein, Kenneth P. Vogel and Ryan Mac report.

Mr. Musk’s acquisition of Twitter is the latest challenge for Trump Media & Technology Group’s flagship Truth Social app, which Mr. Trump has positioned as Twitter’s freewheeling conservative counterpart. Truth Social, which is available only for Apple devices, has 1.3 million installs, Sensor Tower, an app insights company, estimated. By comparison, Twitter has more than 200 million active users.

Mr. Musk announced a deal with Twitter Monday morning after announcing that he had lined up $46.5 billion in financing for his takeover bid. In recent weeks, Mr. Musk has said he would loosen the Twitter moderation policies that he has chafed under — and that famously led the service to bar Mr. Trump for inciting violence over the outcome of the 2020 presidential election.

Although Mr. Musk has not said if he would allow Mr. Trump to return to the platform, his ideas for easing Twitter’s rules would further sap the appeal of Mr. Trump’s beleaguered start-up as it faces a regulatory investigation that could decide its future.

Trump Media declined to comment on Mr. Musk’s Twitter bid. Liz Harrington, a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump, pointed to a recent interview with Americano Media in which the former president said he “probably wouldn’t rejoin Twitter if he could.”

READ THE FULL ARTICLE →

Twitter employees said they knew little of the company’s deal with Musk.

Before Twitter and Elon Musk struck a deal on Monday for him to acquire the company, Twitter employees were searching for answers about how Mr. Musk’s takeover could affect them and the company.

They said they were frustrated because they weren’t hearing much from management about what was going on with the takeover fight and what it meant for them, even as Twitter closed in on a deal with Mr. Musk. They asked their chief executive, Parag Agrawal. They asked Mr. Musk himself in questions sent on Twitter. Some even went to Charles Schwab, the financial firm that manages their stock options, for clarity about the impact a sale of the company would have on them.

But they were not getting very many answers, even as it became clear that they could soon find themselves reporting to Mr. Musk. This is according to 11 Twitter employees who asked to not be named in interviews with The Times’s Kate Conger because they were not authorized to speak publicly. Some employees vented their frustrations on Twitter on Monday, ahead of Twitter’s announcement of its deal with Mr. Musk, while others commiserated in private chats.

Employees said they worried that Mr. Musk would undo the years of work they have put into cleaning up the toxic corners of the platform, upend their stock compensation in the process of taking the company private, and disrupt Twitter’s culture with his unpredictable management style and abrupt proclamations.

But Mr. Musk also has fans among Twitter’s rank-and-file, and some employees have welcomed his bid.

READ THE FULL ARTICLE →

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT

Musk’s Twitter takeover: Catch up on our coverage.

Image
Elon Musk’s takeover of Twitter has been a series of twists and turns since April 4, when he purchased a large stake in the company.Credit...Jim Watson/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

On April 4, Elon Musk revealed that he had purchased a sizable stake in Twitter. Three weeks later, Mr. Musk and Twitter reached a deal for the billionaire to acquire the social media company entirely and take it private. But now Mr. Musk says his bid is “temporarily on hold” until he can get more details to confirm that spam and fake accounts represent less than 5 percent of the social network’s total users.

Here are highlights of our coverage of the twists and turns in this saga:

Elon Musk Becomes Twitter’s Largest Shareholder (April 4): The Tesla chief executive, who has been critical of Twitter’s content moderation policies, has bought 9.2 percent of the social media company.

Elon Musk Joins Twitter’s Board, Pitching Ideas Big and Small (April 5): Free speech, open-source algorithms — and an edit button: The world’s richest person will soon help steer the social media platform where he has a huge following.

Elon Musk Will Not Join Twitter’s Board, Company Says (April 10): The announcement reverses a decision made days earlier. By not joining Twitter’s board, Mr. Musk will also no longer be bound by a previous agreement he had signed with the company.

Elon Musk, After Toying With Twitter, Now Wants It All (April 14): The billionaire executive recently became one of the company’s largest shareholders. Now he says he wants to buy the whole thing and change how it handles speech.

Twitter Counters a Musk Takeover With a Time-Tested Barrier (April 15): With a “poison pill” defense, Twitter seems intent on fending off the billionaire’s bid to buy it.

Elon Musk Races to Secure Financing for Twitter Bid (April 19): Mr. Musk is trying to shore up debt financing, including potentially taking out a loan against his shares of Tesla.

Elon Musk Details Plan for $46.5 Billion Twitter Takeover (April 21): The financial commitments from a group of banks put pressure on the social media company’s board to take his advances seriously.

Twitter in Advanced Talks to Sell Itself to Elon Musk (April 24): The company’s 11-member board held negotiations with Mr. Musk over his offer to buy the social networking service.

.

Elon Musk to Buy Twitter (April 25): The Tesla chief executive struck a deal to buy the site for roughly $44 billion. Here is how we covered the news in real time on the day Mr. Musk and Twitter announced their agreement.

Elon Musk Has Brought In New Investors to Fund His Twitter Deal, a Filing Shows (May 5): Mr. Musk revealed that he had raised around $7 billion from 18 entities to help fund his bid. The investors were a mix of Mr. Musk’s Silicon Valley friends as well as cryptocurrency companies, family offices, sovereign wealth funds, property firms and mutual-fund companies.

Elon Musk Says He Would ‘Reverse the Permanent Ban’ of Donald Trump on Twitter (May 10): Mr. Musk has said he wants Twitter to be a forum for debate, and he called the barring of Mr. Trump “morally wrong.” The former president has said he would not rejoin the platform.

Elon Musk Says His Takeover of Twitter Is ‘On Hold’ (May 13): Mr. Musk announced in a tweet that he wanted more details to confirm that spam and fake accounts represent less than 5 percent of the social network’s total users. About two hours later, Musk tweeted that he was still “committed” to the acquisition.

Elon Musk Says Twitter Deal ‘Cannot Move Forward’ Without More Information (May 17): In early-morning tweets, Mr. Musk called on Twitter to provide more data about the number of spam and fake accounts on the social media site. Twitter’s shares fell below the $54.20 a share that Mr. Musk agreed to pay last month to buy the social media company.

Advertisement

SKIP ADVERTISEMENT