SpaceX and Tesla chief Elon Musk on Monday added yet another major company to his portfolio after the Twitter board gave its nod to a $44bn takeover offer from him. The world’s richest man became the owner of the microblogging site in less than a month of announcing his offer to buy it.
While a lot would change with this deal including the change in the top leadership, it has made an Indian microblogging website “the only institutionally run micro blog in the world and not run by a ‘single person’.”
After Musk’s Twitter takeover was formally announced, Aprameya Radhakrishna, co-Founder and CEO of Koo, took to the platform to announce that Koo India is now the only micro blog in the world which is not run by a ‘single person’.
Meanwhile, the homegrown microblogging platform, took a jibe at rival Twitter earlier this month over the edit button. It said that it didn’t understand the fuss around the edit button as it has had it for over 20 months.
“What’s interesting is that it’s been over 20 months since we’ve had the edit feature,” Mayank Bidawatka, co-founder at Koo App said while addressing a virtual press meet to launch the platform’s self-verify feature. “I don’t understand what the big deal about it is as we launched that feature just a few months after starting out because we were very focused on listening to what our users were saying,” he added.
The dig came after Tesla CEO Musk held a Twitter poll asking users if they’d like to have an edit button option.
Musk’s Twitter takeover
Bret Taylor, Twitter’s Independent Board Chair, said, “The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”
Musk has secured $25.5 billion of fully committed debt and margin loan financing and is providing an approximately $21.0 billion equity commitment, according to PRNewswire. Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock under the agreement’s terms.
