The one that is taking on the connotations of an entrepreneurial thriller, or the attempt by Musk to take Twitter., Has had a further acceleration in the last few hours, with the first counter-reactions and further positions taken by the well-known entrepreneur.
In the past few hours, the proposal of billionaire and entrepreneur Elon Musk, CEO of countless hi-tech companies (Tesla, Space X, Neuralink, The Boring Company, etc) to buy 100% of Twitter’s shares at a price per share including bonus, in the name of an ultimate proposal, considered the best possible. The first positions on this event were not long in coming and Musk, needless to reiterate, did not stand by and watch.
On Thursday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who took over the social media after the obligatory resignation of co-founder Jack Dorsey, held a Q&A meeting (questions and answers) with the platform’s employees , to answer their doubts and concerns. When asked by one of the employees about the possible coincidence of the concept of freedom of expression intended by Musk with that pursued by the social network, Agrawal on the one hand replied that “Twitter represents much more than a human being, any human being” and, in the during the meeting, he added that many of the efforts made by the platform are (already) aimed at ensuring the “health of the conversation”.
After admitting, according to which it is premature to talk about the issue of layoffs if the company goes private, he explained that the board of directors is evaluating Musk’s proposal with a “rigorous process”.
To this statement, reported by the media, Musk immediately responded with a survey on his Twitter profile in which, arguing that the privatization of the social network “should be a decision of the shareholders and not of the board of directors”, he asked users for their opinion, obtaining excellent feedback on the matter. At this point, however, the ruling of one of the platform’s single largest shareholders, the Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who, on behalf of his Kingdom Holding Company fund, actually rejected Musk’s proposal, explaining that, in his opinion , the same does not reflect the real value of the social network, given its intrinsic growth prospects.
Needless to say, this statement also triggered Musk’s reaction. The latter, on the one hand, asked on Twitter how many shares of the platform, the prince’s fund, indirectly and directly, possessed, then also asking what was the concept of freedom of expression of the prince and, then, participating in the conference TED 2022 from Vancouver explained that it is not attempting to storm Twitter for money and that the social media in question should be open-source (with its code that should be uploaded to GitHub so that people can analyze it). Finally, on the same occasion, the histrionic entrepreneur admitted, however, that he is no longer sure he will be able to buy 100% of Twitter and that, in any case, in the event that he does not succeed, he still has a ” plan B”.