Sure enough, Elon Musk pulled the trigger, handed Twitter a fat offer of a buyout, and it’s been nothing but bonkersville ever since.
According to CBS News:
Elon Musk is offering to buy Twitter for $43 billion, saying the social media company “needs to be transformed as a private company.”
The billionaire and founder of electric car maker Tesla, who earlier this month disclosed he owns a 9.2% stake in Twitter, proposed in a regulatory filing on Thursday to buy all of the company’s outstanding common stock for $54.20 per share.
“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” he said in the filing. “However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form.”
The market acted as one might expect of a company that has seen stagnant growth over recent months:
Twitter shares rose 3.6% to $47.49 in early trading. Shares in the social media platform, which was valued at $37 billion prior to Musk’s offer, had declined by roughly a third over the prior year.
It prompted huffing and puffing from the likes of the Washington Post, owned by mega-billionaire Jeff Bezos, about Musk being a threat to democracy or something.
The blue-checks, meanwhile, completely beclowned themselves:
Best Blue Check meltdowns of the Elon Musk Twitter buyout
A 🧵/1 pic.twitter.com/ll6OUFjgRQ
— Auron MacIntyre (@AuronMacintyre) April 14, 2022
David Leavitt, the third bluecheck on that list, recall, is the one who tried to shake down a Target employee for an $89.99 toothbrush for a penny, called the police, and then used Twitter to doxx her when he didn’t get what he wanted.