Twitter could belong to Elon Musk by the end of today, report claims

Twitter could be in the hands of Tesla CEO Elon Musk as soon as the end of Monday, April 25, according to a new report. That's today.

Talk of Musk and Twitter hammering out a deal has been circling for the last 24 hours with the SpaceX founder keen to get things over the line. Now, a Bloomberg report claims that things could be done and dusted within hours.

Twitter is in the final stretch of negotiations about a sale to Elon Musk, a person with knowledge of knowledge of the matter said, Bloomberg News reports. The social media company is working to hammer out terms of a transaction and could reach an agreement as soon as Monday if negotiations go smoothly, according to the person.

Just a matter of hours ago, The Wall Street Journal published a story saying that Musk and Twitter's board were talking about striking a deal worth around $43 billion. Meetings were apparently taking place yesterday.

After initially balking at the idea of a buyout, Twitter now appears to have had a change of heart following meetings on Friday.

The potential turnabout on Twitter's part comes after Mr. Musk met privately Friday with several shareholders of the company to extol the virtues of his proposal while repeating that the board has a "yes-or-no" decision to make, according to people familiar with the matter. He also pledged to solve the free-speech issues he sees as plaguing the platform and the country more broadly, whether his bid succeeds or not, they said.

Today's news comes after Musk previously made himself Twitter's largest shareholder and was supposed to take a place on the company's board. He then backtracked, with many at the time thinking that it could have been to allow him to buy yet more shares. Ever since, there has been an expectation that something was afoot — and it now appears that Twitter could be taken private by Tuesday.

Musk has long been vocal about the way Twitter is run, claiming that it prevents what he calls "free speech," although some would argue that isn't a fair assessment. Many are already concerned about what a Musk-owned Twitter could become, something that they could soon find out if these recent reports turn out to be accurate. Or if an 11th-hour counter-bid were to materialize from somewhere — something that seems increasingly likely as the minutes tick on.