Twitter’s board of directors has unanimously approved SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk’s bid to take over the company for $44 billion, recommending that shareholders approve the deal.
In a document filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Twitter’s board of directors said that they believe Musk’s bid is in the best interests of shareholders, who would be entitled to $54.20 per share once the takeover is complete.
Musk, however, says he is “still awaiting resolution” on the topic of bot accounts, having previously accused Twitter of concealing the true number of bots using the platform.
Musk has called Twitter’s public claim that less than 5 percent of daily users are bots “very suspicious,” and has said the buyout price should be reduced if the number of bots on the platform are higher than the company claims.
In April, Elon Musk announced his plans to buy out Twitter in its entirety and convert it into a free speech platform, a goal that immediately sent censorship supporters into a tailspin of rage.
Musk has said that he believes free speech is important to humanity’s future. “My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” said Musk at the TED 2022 conference in April.
“I do think that we want to be very reluctant to delete things, and just be very cautious with permanent bans. Timeouts, I think, are better than permanent bans,” said Musk at the same event.
More recently, Musk announced a switch to the Republican party, voting red for the first time to support Mayra Flores in last week’s special election for Texas’s 34th Congressional District.
“First time I ever voted Republican,” said Musk on Twitter. “Massive red wave in 2022.”
Allum Bokhari is the senior technology correspondent at Breitbart News. He is the author of #DELETED: Big Tech’s Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal The Election. Follow him on Twitter @LibertarianBlue.