Washington, April 25 (BNA) Elon Musk reached an agreement to buy Twitter for about $44 billion on Monday, according to the Associated Press.
The outspoken Tesla CEO has said he wants to own and privatize Twitter. In a joint statement with Twitter, Musk said he wants to make the service “better than ever” with new features, such as getting rid of automated “spam accounts” and making its algorithms open to the public to increase trust.
The deal was cemented nearly two weeks after the billionaire first revealed a 9% stake in the platform.
Musk said last week that he raised $46.5 billion to fund the purchase of Twitter, which pressured the company’s board of directors to negotiate a deal.
Twitter said the deal was unanimously approved by its board of directors and is expected to close in 2022, pending regulatory and shareholder approval.
Twitter Inc. shares soared. over 5% on Monday to $51.70 per share. On April 14, Musk announced an offer to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share. While the stock has risen sharply since Musk made his bid, it’s well below the high of $77 per share in February 2021.