Elon Musk strikes deal to buy Twitter for $44bn

The board of Twitter has agreed to a $44bn (£34.5bn) takeover offer from the billionaire Elon Musk.

Mr Musk, who made the shock bid less than two weeks ago, said Twitter had “tremendous potential” that he would unlock.

He also called for a series of changes from relaxing its content restrictions to eradicating fake accounts. Twitter had iinitially rebuffed Mr Musk’s bid, but it will now ask shareholders to vote to approve the deal.

Mr Musk is the world’s richest person, according to Forbes magazine, with an estimated net worth of $273.6bn mostly due to his shareholding in electric vehicle maker Tesla which he runs. He also leads the aerospace firm SpaceX.

Announcing the deal on his verified Twitter handle, Musk said, “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,”

“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”.

“Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.” The billionaire added.

The move comes as Twitter faces growing pressure from politicians and regulators over the content that appears on its platform. It has drawn critics from left and right over its efforts to mediate misinformation on the platform.

Neptune Prime recalled that the operation of the microblogging platform in Nigeria was suspended on June 4, 2021, two days after a controversial tweet from President Muhammadu Buhari was deleted by Twitter. The Nigerian government later accused Twitter of sponsoring dissent in the country.

However, after 222 days, the federal government lifted the ban on Twitter operations in the country.

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