How Elon Musk CAPTURED Twitter! | The Forced $44 Billion Deal

The richest man in the world, Elon Musk, has bought Twitter, one of the most famous social media platforms in the world, As soon as he bought it, Elon Musk did the first thing to fire Twitter's CEO, Parag Agarwal. Along with that, many other employees have been fired from Twitter. Elon Musk has claimed that Twitter has now become a free bird. Here, everyone will get more freedom to speak. In his own words, his biggest agenda here is free speech. He wants to bring a revolution of freedom on Twitter and wants to end all biases. After listening, you will feel that Elon Musk loves Twitter a lot. This may be true to some extent, but what do you know? Here, Twitter filed a court case against Elon Musk and somewhere or the other, Elon Musk had to buy Twitter out of helplessness. The story behind this is very interesting. Let's find out in today's video and understand the future of Twitter. Twitter is super influential and it does say something about the world we live in. For better and for worse. Our story begins on 31st January, 2022 when Elon Musk bought shares on Twitter for the first time. For the next 1-2 months, he gradually bought more shares and increased his stake on Twitter. But at this point of time, the public didn't know that he had a stake on Twitter. This was a secret. By March 14, his stake had crossed 5%. According to the Securities and Exchange Commission of the United States, when the stake is more than 5%, the Commission has to disclose this and the public gets to know about it. The Commission usually gives a 10-day deadline but Elon Musk missed it. On 24th March, Elon Musk used Twitter to criticize Twitter. He tweets and asks his followers, what do you think? How free is Twitter? Does it support free speech? Does it support democracy? The reality and the perception that they're able to speak freely within the bounds of the law. At this point of time, Elon Musk was discussing his ideas with Twitter's former CEO, Jack Dorsey. In the initial days, Jack Dorsey was very supportive of Elon Musk because he liked his idea about how passionate he is about free speech. However, at this point of time, Jack Dorsey was no longer the CEO and Parag Agarwal had already become the new CEO. On 3rd April, Elon Musk went to his ideas Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal and talked to the rest of the board members. He said, either make Twitter a private company or make a new rival social media platform to compete against Twitter. The next day, on 4th April, the world found out that Elon Musk already has a huge stake in Twitter. He has bought a 9.2% stake in Twitter and has already become the company's biggest shareholder. After this announcement, the stock price of Twitter skyrocketed. Twitter shares, they are surging right now up a little over 25%. This because Tesla's CEO Elon Musk has now taken a passive stake in Twitter, 9.2% of Twitter's common stock. The board members of Twitter consider what will happen to their company if they take their company private. Or if Elon Musk starts a rival social media platform against it. The rest of the board members offer Elon Musk a seat on the board on 5th April and Elon Musk accepts it. Only 4 days later, on 9th April, Elon Musk tweets, is Twitter dying? Agarwal gets worried and messages Elon Musk that what are you doing? You are such a big shareholder of Twitter and we have offered you a seat as a board member and you are writing against Twitter by using Twitter. Within an hour, Elon Musk replies that he is not joining the board. This is a waste of time. I am not joining the board, this is a waste of time. By 11th April, he clears that he wants to make Twitter a private company. Here, you might think that how did the public get to know about these text messages between Elon Musk and Parag Agarwal? Did someone leak it? Actually, Twitter filed a case against Elon Musk which we will talk about later. And during the court filings, Elon Musk's texts had to be made public. So basically, because of the court case, we are seeing these text messages. On 14th April, 2022, Elon Musk surprises everyone. He releases his offer for the first time to buy the entire company. He says, I will give you $43 billion give me the entire company. What was the reason behind this? Experts argue that Elon Musk is very obsessed with Twitter. But he was not interested in participating in discussions as a board member and wasting time. He wanted to take full control of the entire platform so that he can make Twitter And taking the company private is also a way to do this. Public companies listed on the stock market have to be very transparent. They are scrutinized a lot because the law says that if a company is listed on the stock market, they have to keep a lot of details in front of the public. But those rules are not applicable If private companies want, they can hide a lot of things from the public. Now you must be wondering what happens to the public shareholders when a company becomes private from the public? In such cases, the person who is buying the company will give money to the shareholders. The offer of $43 billion comes out to be approximately $54.2 per share. That is, if you had invested in Twitter, you will get $54.2 in return for your one share when the company becomes private. So what is Twitter's response to Elon Musk's offer? Jack Dorsey is very happy. The text messages that have come out in front of the public between Elon and Jack Jack looks very happy and is in support of Elon Musk buying the entire company. But the text messages that were seen between the then CEO of Twitter, Parag Agarwal and Elon Musk, were not so happy. Elon Musk feels very frustrated with Parag Agarwal. He is working very slowly on this offer. He is trying to convince people. Tensions between Elon and Parag are increasing. Elon writes to Twitter's board chief Taylor fixing Twitter by chatting with Parag won't work. On April 20, 2022, Elon discloses his financial sources. Where will he get the money to buy Twitter? It is found that out of $43 billion, $7 billion will come from senior secured bank loans. Morgan Stanley, banks like Bank of America are ready to give loans. $6 billion will come from subordinated debt. $6.25 billion will be given to Elon personally. $20 billion will be given to Elon's cash equity. $7.1 billion will be sold in the form of equity from 19 different independent investors. Twitter's advisors, Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase, both agree with this deal. On April 25, 2022, Twitter's board accepts this offer for $44 billion. But while accepting this offer, there were some conditions. Elon Musk cannot say anything bad against Twitter or other Twitter employees while this deal is going on. If he is unable to secure this deal, a $1 billion termination fee will be imposed. After the discussion, if Elon Musk backs out of this deal, he will have to pay a $1 billion fine. According to this deal, Parag Agarwal gets $39 million and Jack Dorsey gets $978 million. It sounds like a happy ending. Elon Musk has accepted the offer. Elon Musk will get his Twitter account and the other Twitter employees will be happy. But on May 13, Elon starts getting buyer's remorse. When you go to buy a new smartphone and after buying it, you feel like, did I really need it? Did I waste money? Maybe I shouldn't have bought it. I feel very bad. Maybe Elon Musk was feeling the same. He puts this deal on hold. What is the reason for putting it on hold? Elon says that some reports have come out that only 5% of Twitter users are bots. He thought that there would be more than 20% bots on Twitter. He was deceived. When people asked him why he didn't consider it before buying it, he said that Twitter will have to show proof that their estimates are correct. People believed that Elon Musk was facing buyer's remorse. Either he wanted to reduce the price or he was looking for excuses to withdraw from the deal. At this point of time, there is a fight on Twitter between Elon Musk and Parag Agarwal. Parag Agarwal tweeted that the company's external review cannot be done on bots. This puts the users' privacy at risk. Elon Musk replied with a potty emoji. The richest man in the world talks the same way you talk to your friends. On 17th May, Twitter files new documents in the Securities and Exchange Commission. Twitter says that they had a deal and Elon Musk will not say anything against the company till the negotiations are going on. But what are they doing here? This is a breach of contract. In June, the commission asks Twitter to provide data to Elon Musk. Estimate how many spam accounts are there on Twitter. On 7th July, Twitter tells the public that 1 million bots are removed from Twitter platforms every day. But at the same time, this cannot be checked by an external agency. We cannot tell the exact data because if someone else comes and gets the information about the company, the users' privacy is at risk. The next day, Elon Musk says that he is terminating the deal. He is withdrawing from the deal. In response, Twitter files a court case against Elon Musk on 12th July. Twitter says that the way Elon Musk is showing uncertainty to the public is affecting the company's performance. Our revenues are falling. At this point of time, the fees of $1 billion if Elon Musk withdrew from the deal, Twitter did not want that. Now, Twitter wants Elon Musk to terminate the deal. He should buy the deal because he has already breached the contract. This is how the court case starts. On 29th July, Elon Musk files a court case against Twitter saying that Twitter did not publish the details. Twitter mislead its investors by lying about the spam and bot accounts. On 23rd August, a new player enters the story and Elon Musk gets a new excuse. Peter Majzatko's whistleblower report comes to the world. Who is Peter Majzatko? He was the former head of security of Twitter. He was fired in January 2022 due to poor performance. On 6th July, he met a non-profit organisation, Whistleblower Aid and filed a complaint against Twitter in the US Justice Department and the Federal Trading Commission. They said that Twitter follows unethical safety practices and their content moderation policies are not aligned to the laws of the country. Along with that, Twitter has also mislead its investors by lying about fake bot numbers. Majzatko also said that Twitter is in danger of foreign agents. A Chinese agent was mentioned and it was said that there was pressure on a company to employ an Indian. In response to all this, Twitter said that Majzatko is an old and angry employee because we fired him. So now he's making up a false narrative and putting false allegations on us. Elon Musk took advantage of this and sent a second termination letter to Twitter. Elon Musk said that the reasons given in the first termination letter that our bot numbers are wrong are valid. Now here's the second termination letter. This time, the reason is that I won't deal because of the allegations Meanwhile, the leaked messages of Elon Musk show that Elon Musk wanted to back off regarding World War 3. He was afraid that World War 3 might happen. The US Senate Judiciary Committee agrees with Majzatko's allegations on September 13th. Four days before this, on 9th September, Elon Musk sent his third termination letter giving a third reason why he didn't want to deal with Twitter. Again, although we have sent two more termination letters before this, just in case you're not convinced, here's the third reason why we don't want to do this deal. On one hand, Elon Musk is against Twitter and on the other hand, Majzatko is being accused. It might sound like a bad news for Twitter but legally speaking, Twitter was in a better position. On 3rd October 2022, Elon Musk's legal team tells them that it's going to be very difficult for them to fight the case. There hasn't been any unfavourable change in their business, financial condition and valuation. So we don't have a concrete reason to reject this deal. Hearing this, on 4th October, Elon Musk takes a U-turn and informs Twitter that the offer of $44 billion to buy Twitter is still applicable. Interestingly, just two days after this, Elon Musk was supposed to be presented in court. Twitter's lawyers questioned Elon Musk. But before that, Elon Musk said that his old offer is valid. On 20th October 2022, Twitter employees tell their problems. The Washington Post reports that Elon Musk actually missed 75% of the employees who wanted to fire him. But these employees said that our board members wanted to fire 25% of the staff by the end of 2023. So they didn't have a problem in selling the company to Elon Musk. Twitter employees write an open letter protesting against Elon Musk's takeover. They express their anger and say that in the future, this won't be good for Twitter. But on 27th October 2022, this deal is finally closed. Elon Musk officially buys Twitter. Elon Musk carried a kitchen sink into Twitter HQ this week. Tweety let that sink in. Instantly, the news comes that he has fired the CEO Parag Agarwal. Apart from this, the CFO, Chief Legal Officer and General Counsel are also fired. Security comes and shows all these people the way out. Elon Musk himself becomes the CEO of Twitter. And puts his next plans for Twitter in front of the public. Which is very shocking. First, he shows his intention to make Twitter like a Chinese app WeChat. On which people can not only tweet but also chat with each other, make video calls, play video games and make payments. Meaning an app that has everything. Second, his strangest plan is that the blue tick marks that you see on Twitter are usually given to famous and notable people. He says that he will give these tick marks to everyone at a cost of $8 per month. Did you hear correctly? He is literally selling the blue tick marks. Elon Musk says that this is a way to make a new source of revenue for him. But his critics say that basically, the money that Elon Musk has spent on Twitter now he is trying to recover it somehow. If he can't see any other way then withdraw money from here. Make this thing paid. Get a payment system in it. Add video games to the app. As a public company, from 28th October, Twitter is delisted from the New York Stock Exchange. After that, it has become a private company. Elon also says that he has created a new Content Moderation Council whose job will be to handle issues of free speech. As I told you in the beginning of the video, Elon Musk is very passionate about free speech. He wants to bring back the accounts of people whose accounts have been deleted. Although, Donald Trump approves Elon Musk's efforts but he says that he won't rejoin Twitter. Because he has his own social media platform called Truth Social. Interestingly, when a few months ago Elon Musk was trying to withdraw from this deal to buy Twitter, Donald Trump criticized his accusation calling it rotten. Elon's answer to that was time for Trump to hang up his hat and sail into the sunset. Now, we'll see what Twitter's future holds. One thing is for sure reported that Twitter will fire at least half of its employees to save money. Apart from this, the freedom of speech issue for Elon Musk is not going to be an easy task. Because where should the line be drawn between free speech and hate speech? I talked about this in detail in the Arnab Goswami video. After Elon Musk's takeover, Twitter has seen more tweets that are hateful, pro-Nazi and against women. Basketball star Lebron James expressed concern about this by saying that unfit people saying hate speech is free speech. If we talk about the business aspect, Elon's plan is to take Twitter's revenue to $26 billion by 2028. Which was currently $5 billion last year. For users, he says 931 million users is his goal for 2028. And now there are 217 million users on Twitter. For such a big expansion, he might make Twitter a bit like TikTok. On 31st October, he tweeted a poll asking if people want to see Vine on Twitter again. Vine used to be an old social media platform which was integrated with Twitter. On which people could post video clips for 6 seconds. What is your opinion on this? What do you think? In the near future, will Elon Musk's weird ideas make Twitter better or worse? Tell us in the comments below. If you liked the video, you can watch other company analysis videos by clicking on this playlist. Thank you very much.