Faith Nyasuguta
The board of social media giant Twitter has agreed to a $44bn takeover offer from the billionaire Elon Musk.
Mr Musk, who made the shock bid less than two weeks ago, noted that Twitter had “tremendous potential” that he would unlock.
He went ahead to call for a series of changes from relaxing its content restrictions to elimination of fake accounts.
Discussions over the deal, which last week appeared uncertain, accelerated over the weekend after Musk wooed Twitter shareholders with financing details of his offer.
Under pressure, Twitter started negotiating with Musk to buy the company at his proposed $54.20 per share price.
According to Forbes magazine, Musk is the world’s richest person 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.
“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,” Musk revealed in a statement announcing the deal.
“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.”
The development comes as Twitter faces growing pressure from politicians and regulators over the content that appears on its platform. It has drawn criticism from left and right over its efforts to mediate misinformation on the platform.
In one of its most high-profile moves, last year it banned former US President Donald Trump, perhaps its most powerful user, citing the risk of “incitement of violence”.
