Tesla (TSLA) CEO Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, has finally closed his deal to buy social media platform Twitter (TWTR) CNBC reported, citing sources. The deal’s closure faced a deadline of this Friday at 5 p.m. ET when a previously-postponed lawsuit brought by Twitter against Musk to move forward with the deal would have resumed.
The deal, which was first announced in April, hit multiple roadblocks along the way, including Musk’s concerns about the number of spam bots on Twitter, while Twitter at one point adopted a poison pill to block the takeover.
But earlier this month, Musk proposed moving ahead with the deal again at the originally agreed-upon price of $44 billion, or $54.20 per share, according to a letter from Musk’s attorneys to Twitter’s lawyers that was also filed with the SEC.
Twitter’s share price was $53.70 at market close while Musk’s favored cryptocurrency dogecoin (DOGE), which he has suggested could be used for certain payments at Twitter, was trading down 2.3% at 00:43 UTC, after rising 16% in the lead up to the deal’s completion.
Potential crypto plans for Twitter remain unclear. In June, Musk discussed the logic for Twitter integrating digital payments into its service, while Twitter previously added bitcoin tipping in 2021 under then-CEO Jack Dorsey and added ether wallets to the feature earlier this year. Twitter also became the first company to try out a new program from payments processor Stripe, which in April announced a feature enabling payments in USDC via Polygon.
Overall, Musk’s takeover is being touted as a win for the crypto community. “In the last few years, Elon has been very vocal about his stance on crypto and blockchain. Musk understands Web3 and understands the potential of blockchain technology which will be instrumental in propelling adoption forward,” Ben Weiss, CEO of Bitcoin ATM company CoinFlip, told CoinDesk.
“Decentralization is a real possibility for Twitter,” Weiss also noted. “In recent years, shutdowns and bans have become more prevalent. Regardless of your stance on the matter, decentralization takes the power away from corporations and gives it back to users.”
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