Twitter and Elon Musk

Musk expressed interest in buying Twitter as early as 2017 and had previously questioned the platform's commitment to freedom of speech.

In January 2022, Musk started purchasing Twitter shares, reaching a 9.2% stake by April making him the largest shareholder.[

When this was publicly disclosed, Twitter shares experienced the largest intraday price surge since the company's 2013 IPO. On April 4, Musk agreed to a deal that would appoint him to Twitter's board of directors and prohibit him from acquiring more than 14.9% of the company.

However, on April 13, Musk made a $43 billion offer to buy Twitter, launching a takeover bid to buy 100% of Twitter's stock at $54.20 per share. In response, Twitter's board adopted a "poison pill" shareholder rights plan to make it more expensive for any single investor to own more than 15% of the company without board approval.

Nevertheless, by the end of the month Musk had successfully concluded his bid for approximately $44 billion.[1 This included about $12.5 billion in loans against his Tesla stock and $21 billion in equity financing.

Tesla's stock market value sank by over $100 billion the next day in reaction to the deal, causing Musk to lose around $30 billion of his net worth.

He subsequently tweeted criticism of Twitter executive Vijaya Gadde's policies to his 86 million followers, which led to some of them engaging in sexist and racist harassment against her.

Exactly a month after announcing the takeover, Musk stated that the deal was "on hold" following a report that 5% of Twitter's daily active users were spam accounts causing Twitter shares to drop more than 10 percent.

Although he initially affirmed his commitment to the acquisition he sent notification of his termination of the deal in July; Twitter's Board of Directors responded that they were committed to holding him to the transaction.

On July 12, 2022, Twitter formally sued Musk in the Chancery Court of Delaware for breaching a legally binding agreement to purchase Twitter. In October 2022, Musk reversed again, offering to purchase Twitter at $54.20 per share. The acquisition was officially completed on October 27.