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

By Oliver Haslam
published

Elon Musk
Elon Musk (Image credit: Recode)

What you need to know

  • Twitter's board has been meeting with Elon Musk about a potential buyout.
  • A new report claims that a deal could be struck as soon as today.
  • Musk is set to spend around $43 billion on Twitter.

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.

Oliver Haslam
Oliver Haslam
Contributor

Oliver Haslam has written about Apple and the wider technology business for more than a decade with bylines on How-To Geek, PC Mag, iDownloadBlog, and many more. He has also been published in print for Macworld, including cover stories. At iMore, Oliver is involved in daily news coverage and, not being short of opinions, has been known to 'explain' those thoughts in more detail, too.

Having grown up using PCs and spending far too much money on graphics card and flashy RAM, Oliver switched to the Mac with a G5 iMac and hasn't looked back. Since then he's seen the growth of the smartphone world, backed by iPhone, and new product categories come and go. Current expertise includes iOS, macOS, streaming services, and pretty much anything that has a battery or plugs into a wall. Oliver also covers mobile gaming for iMore, with Apple Arcade a particular focus. He's been gaming since the Atari 2600 days and still struggles to comprehend the fact he can play console quality titles on his pocket computer.

5 Comments
  • Ugh. From his previous statements, the most likely immediate outcome of this will be the return of Donald Trump, MTG, Gaetz, etc. to the platform and lots and lots of racism, sexism etc. This might make him a ton of money, but it's a sh*tty thing to do. Perhaps his reputation will finaly catch up with reality and people will see him for the 'bro' he actually is.
  • A lot of people are really freaking out today. Several tech sites, like Gizmodo are running hit pieces on Musk, where the writer, who hasn't even come close to obtaining 1/100000 of the sucess of Musk has, ran a headline story about what an ***** Musk is. For me, I never understood the constant whining about it. I don't use social media anymore because they are tearing America apart. You don't have to follow people you don't want to see. You can block people. You can use bots to make it so you only see content that you'll agree with. I just never understood the people who want to ban those they disagree with or hurt their feelings. It's not very American.
  • You do realize that free speech means that people you don't agree with can post stuff, right? Of course you don't. You lot only care about the speech of YOUR side.
  • Spending $43 billion to buy a website to implement your version of free speech isn't free speech. Can't wait until it's flooded with insurrectionists, racists, sexists, homophobes, pedophiles, and all the other scum of the internet.
  • 1. Musk does not yet own Twitter. Twitter has agreed to sell ownership to Musk, which is expected to close in ~6 months and then Musk will own it.
    1B. Lost in the sloppy mainstream reporting is maybe a fly in the ointment, so to speak. This deal went through really fast, so maybe there are issues whether the Twitter board maybe any reasonable efforts to get a higher price or find a buyer who'd offer more
    2. The great thing about Twitter is that users are pretty free to use it as they want. If Trump is back on it -- and because reasons it could cost him a shitload of $$ to return -- I neither have to see his toxic spew nor is the Twitter algorithm going to force his tweets on me. So if Musk decides to give every toxic liar free reign, I don't really care. (Speaking of Trump: Did you know he was historically unfit for any public office even without his pathological spew on Twitter?)
    3. Given Twitter's failure as a for-profit business, maybe Musk's buying it is a net good thing, or at least an improvement.