Tech Brief: Twitter to be Acquired by Elon Musk for $44 Billion

Social media platform Twitter on Monday said it officially entered into an agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, with the transaction valued at approximately US$ 44 billion, or US$ 54.20 per share in cash. The deal, which is expected to be closed over the next six months, will see it becoming a privately held company. "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 said. "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."