Elon Musk on Monday signed a deal to buy Twitter for about $44 billion, making the largest deal to sell a company in at least two decades.
The control will likely be intense. Twitter isn’t the largest social platform — it has more than 217 million daily users, compared to billions for Facebook and Instagram — but it has played an outrageous role in shaping stories around the world. Political leaders have turned it into a megaphone, while corporations, celebrities and others have used it to sharpen images and make money.
Musk’s acquisition raised concerns that the world’s richest person is in control of an influential communications platform. A director of a women’s rights organization called it “an enormous slippery slope.”
Twitter’s board has already unanimously approved the deal. Here’s what’s next for Twitter:
Shareholders vote on whether or not to accept the deal. It will also be reviewed by regulators, but are unlikely to seriously contest the transaction, former antitrust officials said, as the government usually steps in to stop a deal when a company buys a competitor.
According to Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, the deal is expected to take three to six months. He told Twitter employees that he would remain in his position at least until the deal, according to two people who attended a meeting and were not authorized to speak publicly. He also urged employees to “use Twitter as we have always done”.
Mr. Musk has repeatedly said he wants to “transform” the platform by promoting more freedom of speech and giving users more control over what they see on it. On Monday, he said he would focus on “new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeat the spam bots and authenticate all people.”
Executives tried to assure employees that they would not be short-changed by taking over Mr. musk. Mr. Agrawal told them that their stock options would be converted to cash when the deal with Mr. Musk closes. Workers would receive the same benefits for a year after the deal was completed, and there were no immediate plans for layoffs, he added.
Conservatives, who feel they have been unjustly silenced by social media platforms, have cheered the news of Mr Musk’s deal. mr. Agrawal was asked by staff members whether former President Donald J. Trump, who was banned from the agency after the Jan. 6 riots, would be reinstated. Mr. Agrawal waited and left the question to Mr. Musk to answer once he takes over the company. As for Mr Trump, he told Fox News Monday that he would continue to post on his own social network, Truth Social.
