The $44 billion acquisition of Twitter is 100% complete. Elon Musk owns the social media company. Wall Street suspended trading of the stock Friday, now that it is a private company.
Investment analysts are having a field day making headlines about how they believe Musk overpaid for the company that the previous leadership devalued with their ineptness. Most likely, Musk is keeping score of who’s saying what, but now that the seven-month saga is officially in the rear-view mirror, the next big question is, what does he do now that he owns it?
Analyst Dan Ives wrote to his clients about the $44 billion price tag.
“The easy part for Musk was buying Twitter, the difficult part and Everest-like uphill battle looking ahead will be fixing this troubled asset. The $44 billion price tag for Twitter will go down as one of the most overpaid tech acquisitions in the history of M&A deals on the Street in our opinion.”
A story in Fox listed potential priorities for Musk and the new regime he brings in to run the San Francisco-based company. At the top of the list is free speech. Musk has said for months that he wants it to be a “digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated.”
You’d think that is what the initial agenda of the company should have been.
In a letter to advertisers, Musk expanded on that, saying, “Twitter obviously cannot become a free-for-all hells cape, where anything can be said with no consequences! In addition to adhering to the laws of the land, our platform must be warm and welcoming to all, where you can choose your desired experience according to your preferences, just as you can choose, for example, to see movies or play video games ranging from all ages to mature.”
Will Musk allow former President Donald Trump back on? Most likely. Trump, however, might choose not to return and instead keep sending his messages out on Truth Social.
Musk wants permanent bans to be “extremely rare,” He holds a particular disdain for spam and fake accounts, which he will target for permanent expulsion.
He wants to make the product better. Make changes to its algorithm for public information and find a way to authenticate humans on the platform.
More heads will undoubtedly roll. Time will tell if it is what the Washington Post reported it would be, of a 75% reduction in the workforce.
He certainly didn’t purchase Twitter to lose money, and you can bet $45 billion that the ride over the next few years will be entertaining.
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