The $44 billion Twitter takeover

Twitter’s board agreed on 25 April 2022 to sell the company to Musk for $54.20 a share, about $44 billion. [1]

On 8 July 2022, Musk said he was terminating the deal, arguing Twitter had misled him about spam and fake accounts. Twitter sued in Delaware to force the sale. Shortly before trial, Musk agreed to close, and on 27 October 2022 he took control. He fired chief executive Parag Agrawal and other top executives. [2][3][4][6]

He introduced an $8 monthly paid blue check, and on 19 November 2022, after a poll on the platform, restored Donald Trump’s account. [4][5]

In an April 2023 BBC interview, Musk said Twitter had gone from just under 8,000 staff to about 1,500, and that the site still worked. [1]

In July 2023 he said the company still had negative cash flow because advertising revenue had fallen by about half, along with heavy debt. [2]

A June 2023 list of X shareholders became public through litigation in August 2024. It named investors including Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal’s Kingdom Holding, a Binance-linked fund, a16z, Sequoia, Fidelity, Jack Dorsey, Larry Ellison and a fund tied to Qatar’s sovereign fund. It gave no ownership percentages. [3][4]