It’s Official: Musk Acquires Twitter; Twitterati Reacts With, Well, Memes

New York: It’s official. Elon Musk has acquired Twitter for $44 billion.

Before the deal was clinched, Musk met “several shareholders of the company privately to extol the virtues of his proposal” and made video calls to them to push his case.

“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, who calls himself a free speech absolutist, said in a statement.

Political activists expect that a Musk regime will mean less moderation and reinstatement of banned individuals including former US President Donald Trump, Reuters reported.

Some human rights activists voiced fears of a rise in hate speech.

Musk bought a nine per cent stake in Twitter in April before offering to buy the company.

Following the deal, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos asked whether the Chinese government will gain some leverage now. Bezos shared a tweet by New York Times reporter Mike Forsythe pointing to Tesla’s massive market in China and its reliance on Chinese suppliers for its EVs.

As usual, Twitterati greeted the news of Musk as the new owner of the microblogging platform with, well, memes.