The world’s richest man and CEO of Tesla (TSLA), Elon Musk, has finally finalized a deal to acquire Twitter (TWTR), according to sources cited by CNBC. By this Friday at 5:00 p.m. ET, a previously postponed lawsuit initiated by Twitter against Musk to proceed with the acquisition would have begun, making that time the agreement’s deadline for completion.
The acquisition, which was first disclosed in April, encountered numerous obstacles along the way, including Musk’s worries about the volume of spam bots on Twitter and Twitter’s adoption of a poison pill at one point to thwart the purchase.
But early this month, according to a letter from Elon Musk’s lawyers to Twitter’s lawyers that were also submitted to the SEC, Elon Musk suggested pushing forward with the deal once more at the initially agreed-upon price of $44 billion, or $54.20 per share.
At market close, Twitter’s shares were trading at $53.70, while Elon Musk’s preferred cryptocurrency, dogecoin (DOGE), which he has hinted could be used for some Twitter payments, was down 2.3% at 00:43 UTC after climbing 16% in the days leading up to the deal’s closing.
Twitter’s potential cryptocurrency aspirations are yet unknown. While Twitter had included bitcoin tipping in 2021 under the leadership of then-CEO Jack Dorsey and added ether wallets to the feature earlier this year, Musk explained the rationale for Twitter adopting digital payments into its site in a June interview. A new initiative from payment processor Stripe, which in April unveiled a feature permitting payments in USDC via Polygon, was also tested for the first time by Twitter.
Ben Weiss, CEO of Bitcoin ATM company CoinFlip, told local media,
“In the last few years, Elon has been very vocal about his stance on crypto and blockchain. Musk understands Web3 and understands the potential of blockchain technology which will be instrumental in propelling adoption forward.”
CZ Confirms Investment In Elon Musk’s New Throne
Currently, Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter has confirmed cryptocurrency exchange operator Binance as an equity stakeholder. Binance founder and CEO Changpeng Zhao said in a statement,
“We’re excited to be able to help Elon realize a new vision for Twitter. We aim to play a role in bringing social media and web3 together in order to broaden the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.”
Musk reportedly fired Twitter’s senior executives, including CEO Parag Agarwal, after the $44 billion acquisition closed yesterday. According to a recent Bloomberg article, Musk intends to take over as CEO of Twitter and lift the platform’s lifetime account termination policy.
Following a months-long on-again, off-again battle between Musk and Twitter, news of Binance’s investment has surfaced. Binance had promised $500 million in May to invest in Twitter in conjunction with Musk’s acquisition of the social media platform. A representative for Binance told The Block, “Our initial commitment remains the same and we look forward to exploring options to strengthen the cooperation in the future.”