Elon Musk news - live: Twitter takeover reaction and latest updates

After Twitter said it has reached an agreement to sell the company to Elon Musk for around $44bn, the platform’s former chief and co-founder Jack Dorsey has called the billionaire’s takeover of the company the “singular solution” he trusts.

The deal was announced by the social media platform on Monday after days of negotiations between the world’s richest person and the Twitter board.

Musk will pay $54.20 cash per share for the San Francisco-based company, which will now be taken private after days of intense negotiations between the entrepreneur and the platform’s board.

The board announced it had reached a deal with Musk on Monday, and that it represented a 38 per cent premium from Twitter’s closing price on 1 April, the day before the world’s richest person made his move for the company by announcing his nine per cent stake.

Musk will likely make some significant changes to the social media platform, having made several hints in recent months about what his intentions are. It comes after Musk’s friend Dorsey stepped down as CEO and Parag Agrawal took over.

Key points

• Jack Dorsey calls Elon Musk ‘singular solution’ he trusts

• Twitter announces company will be sold to Tesla titan Elon Musk for $44bn

• What would Twitter look like under Elon Musk?

• Why is Elon Musk interested in Twitter?

• Elon Musk’s ten most notable tweets, from Covid-complaints to Bill Gates and Joe Biden-bashing

• How much will Jack Dorsey make from selling Twitter to Elon Musk?

Human rights groups raise hate-speech concerns on Twitter after Musk buyout

08:05 , Vishwam Sankaran

Human rights groups, including Amnesty International and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), have raised concerns about hate speech on Twitter after Elon Musk’s deal to take over the company.

“Regardless of who owns Twitter, the company has human rights responsibilities to respect the rights of people around the world who rely on the platform. Changes to its policies, features, and algorithms, big and small, can have disproportionate and sometimes devastating impacts, including offline violence,” Deborah Brown, a digital rights researcher, told Reuters.

With Mr Musk calling free speech “the bedrock of a functioning democracy,” activists raise concerns that new policies may turn a blind eye to violent and abusive speech.

Twitter CEO admits they ‘don’t know’ what will happen to company under Musk

07:56 , Graeme Massie

ICYMI: Twitter’s CEO has told employees at a town hall meeting that the future of the platform is unclear after agreeing to sell to Elon Musk for $44bn.

Parag Agrawal spoke to employees at a town hall meeting just hours after the deal with the Tesla boss was announced, according to Reuters, which had access to it.

“Once the deal closes, we don’t know which direction the platform will go,” said Mr Agrawal, according tothe news organisation.

The company has told staff that Mr Musk will hold a question-and-answer session for them at a future date.

White house says Biden ‘has long been concerned about the power of large social media platforms'

07:03 , Graeme Massie

ICYMI: White House press secretary Jen Psaki told her Monday press briefing that she was “not going to comment on a specific transition” but reiterated that the administration continues to believe that “no matter who owns or runs Twitter, the president has long been concerned about the power of large social media platforms” and stressed that “tech platforms must be held accountable for the harms they cause.”

She pointed to bipartisan interest in Congress for antitrust measures and reforming section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.

And she added: “Our concerns are not new. We’ve long talked about, and the president has long talked about, the powers of social media platforms … to spread misinformation, disinformation [and] the need for these platforms to be held accountable.”

Jameela Jamil quits Twitter after Elon Musk buys site for $44bn

06:10 , Graeme Massie

ICYMI: Jameela Jamil has announced that she’s leaving Twitter after news that Elon Musk has purchased the platform.

The Tesla founder successfully acquired the social media site on Monday (25 April) for around $44bn (£34.5bn). As a result, Twitter will now be a privately owned company.

Nicole Vassell has the story.

Jameela Jamil quits Twitter after Elon Musk buys site for $44bn

Elizabeth Warren calls Musk’s Twitter takeover ‘dangerous for our democracy’

06:03 , Vishwam Sankaran

After Twitter accepted Tesla chief Elon Musk’s bid to take over the company for $44bn, US senator Elizabeth Warren said the deal is “dangerous for our democracy.”

“Billionaires like Elon Musk play by a different set of rules than everyone else, accumulating power for their own gain,” Ms Warren said on Tuesday.

She pointed to the need for a wealth tax and “strong rules” to “hold Big Tech accountable.”

Trump says he won’t return to Twitter but calls Elon Musk ‘a good man’

05:04 , Graeme Massie

ICYMI: Donald Trump has said he will not return to Twitter following the news that Elon Musk has bought the platform the former president was banned from.

Mr Trump made the announcement that he would not rejoin twitter despite the Tesla boss’s $44bn purchase, and instead said he wold use his own platform TRUTH Social.

More on this story.

Trump says he won't return to Twitter but calls Elon Musk 'a good man'

Jack Dorsey calls Elon Musk ‘singular solution’ he trusts

04:30 , Vishwam Sankaran

Twitter co-founder and former chief Jack Dorsey says Elon Musk is the “singular solution” he trusts.

Sharing concerns about Twitter being “owned by Wall Street and the ad model”, Mr Dorsey said the platform being run as a company was always his “sole issue” and “biggest regret.”

“I don’t believe anyone should own or run Twitter. It wants to be a public good at a protocol level, not a company,” he said.

“Solving for the problem of it being a company however, Elon is the singular solution I trust,” the former Twitter chief added.

Elon Musk sends first tweet after buying Twitter

04:06 , Graeme Massie

ICYMI: Elon Musk has sent his first tweet after reaching an agreement to buy Twitter for around $44bn.

The company’s new owner posted the phrase “Yes!!!” surrounded by red hearts, shooting stars and rocket ship emojis, above his statement on the deal.

Elon Musk sends first tweet after buying Twitter

Twitter announces company will be sold to Tesla titan Elon Musk for $44bn

03:03 , Graeme Massie

ICYMI: Twitter has announced that the social media company will be sold to Tesla titan Elon Musk for around $44bn.

Mr Musk will pay $54.20 cash per share for the San Francisco-based company, which will now be taken private after days of intense negotiations between the entrepreneur and the platform’s board.

More details below.

Twitter announces company will be sold to Elon Musk

How much will Jack Dorsey make from selling Twitter to Elon Musk?

02:31 , Graeme Massie

ICYMI: Throughout Twitter’s often controversial existence, former CEO Jack Dorsey has been the face and essential identity of the company.

Mr Dorsey, who came to the tech world after twice dropping out of university and becoming a certified masseuse, founded the social media platform in 2006 with Noah Glass, Biz Stone and Evan Williams.

More details below.

How much will Jack Dorsey make from selling Twitter to Elon Musk?

Elon Musk’s ten most notable tweets, from Covid-complaints to Bill Gates and Joe Biden-bashing

02:01 , Graeme Massie

ICYMI: Tesla CEO and billionaire-personality Elon Musk has come one step closer to taking control of America’s most hotly debated social-media platform, Twitter, following his $46.bn (£36.6bn) bid for the San Fransisco-based firm.

Ahead of an expected announcement from Twitter of Musk’s takeover on Monday, The Independent has listed the billionaire’s most popular and controversial tweets from his 12 years and 10 months on the site, featuring Covid-19, the climate crisis and more.

Elon Musk’s ten most notable tweets

How to delete your Twitter account

01:15 , Graeme Massie

Twitter’s decision to sell the company to Elon musk for $44bn has left some users seriously considering their future on the social media platform.

With Mr Musk promising to defend “free speech” and the prospect of banned right-wing figures, such as Donald Trump and Marjorie Taylor Greene, potentially being welcomed back, critics are deleting their accounts, even as the businessman welcomed them on Twitter.

More details below.

How to delete your Twitter account

Jeff Bezos weighs in on Elon Musk buying Twitter

01:01 , Graeme Massie

The world’s second richest man took to twitter to question China’s leverage over the Tesla CEO and Twitter.

“Interesting question. Did the Chinese government just gain a bit of leverage over the town square?” he tweeted.

Elon Musk sends first tweet after buying Twitter

Monday 25 April 2022 21:06 , Graeme Massie

Elon Musk has sent his first tweet after reaching an agreement to buy Twitter for around $44bn.

The company’s new owner posted the phrase “Yes!!!” surrounded by red hearts, shooting stars and rocket ship emojis, above his statement on the deal.

Twitter announces company will be sold to Tesla titan Elon Musk for $44bn

Monday 25 April 2022 20:03 , Graeme Massie

Twitter’s board announces that the company will be sold to Elon Musk for around $44bn.

What are Elon Musk’s politics?

Monday 25 April 2022 19:47 , Graeme Massie

Elon Musk has claimed that he wants to stay “out of politics” but has made numerous criticisms of the US government.

In early December, he hammered US president Joe Biden’s flagship infrastructure and social spending bills for granting unnecessary subsidies to the electric car industry and increasing the “insane” federal budget deficit.

The 50-year-old’s exact politics can be hard to pin down. He has donated often to both Democrats and Republicans while variously declaring himself a “moderate”, a “socialist”, and “socially liberal and fiscally conservative”.

According to data gathered by the non-profit lobbying watchdog Open Secrets, Elon Musk has given a total of $1.2m to politicians, parties, political action committees (PACs), and referendum campaigns since 2002.

That money went almost equally to Democrats, with $542,000, and Republicans, with $574,500, with another $85,000 going to two broadly left-wing referendum campaigns in California. The balance has fluctuated over the years: in 2006, 2013 and 2017 he donated overwhelmingly to Republicans, while in 2015 he gave exclusively to Democrats.

Devin Nunes says Trump won’t go back to Twitter if Musk buys it claiming his much mocked Truth Social has better engagement

Monday 25 April 2022 19:15 , Graeme Massie

Supporters of former president Donald Trump who are cheering Elon Musk’s bid to buy Twitter as a sign that the ex-president’s permanent ban from the platform may be lifted under new ownership will be disappointed to hear that he has no plans to return to the social network that helped fuel his unprecedented rise to the presidency.

Andrew Feinberg has the story.

Devin Nunes says Trump won’t go back to Twitter if Musk buys it

Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Elon Musk will restore her banned Twitter account

Monday 25 April 2022 18:21 , Graeme Massie

Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene was among those on the right celebrating what looks to be Elon Musk’s impending takeover of Twitter on Monday.

The Georgia representative saw her personal account permanently banned from the site on 2 January of this year after she repeatedly used the account to share false or easily disprovable claims about Covid-19, includin a blatantly false assertion that the Covid-19 vaccine was dangerous and leading to thousands of deaths in the US.

John Bowden has more details.

Marjorie Taylor Greene claims Elon Musk will restore her banned Twitter account

Elon Musk will bring Trump back to Twitter — and that’s just the beginning

Monday 25 April 2022 18:06 , Graeme Massie

Mr Musk claims he wants to push Twitter to allow more free speech. But really he’s just changing the editorial stance of a private company to publish more conservative speech, like Fox taking over the New York Times.

Noah Berlatsky has more.

Elon Musk will bring Trump back to Twitter — and that’s just the beginning

Five ways Twitter will change under Elon Musk

Monday 25 April 2022 17:47 , Anthony Cuthbertson

Elon Musk is already the head of four major endeavours: Neuralink, SpaceX, Tesla and The Boring Company.

One wants to connect people’s brains directly to computers, another wants to colonise Mars, while Tesla is the world’s most valuable car maker. Oh, and The Boring Company has the ambitious goal of eliminating traffic.

Working one day a week on each, Musk just about has the bandwidth to add one more massive role to his multi-hyphenated job title. But what exactly does he want to do with it?

Here’s five ways Twitter might change under his ownership:

Five ways Twitter could change under Elon Musk

Elon Musk welcomes his ‘worst critics’ to stay on Twitter as platform set to accept his $43bn bid

Monday 25 April 2022 17:46 , Graeme Massie

Elon Musk has urged his “worst critics” to stay on Twitter as the platform’s board is expected to accept the Tesla titan’s $43bn cash offer for the company.

Mr Musk took to Twitter amid reports he could become its owner as early as Monday, and wrote, “I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means.”

Elon Musk welcomes his ‘worst critics’ to stay on Twitter

Monday 25 April 2022 17:30 , Adam Smith

On the other hand, Mr Musk’s statements about social issues have rarely been as vociferous or clear as his economic views. Indeed, he has often sent contrary signals and occasionally seemed to flirt with social conservatism.

Last spring, for instance, he told followers to “take the red pill”, a phrase used by white supremacists and anti-feminists to describe the process of being radicalised into their worldview.

At the time, he was engaged in a crusade against California’s Covid lockdown policies, which he described as “fascist”. He had declared early in the pandemic that “the coronavirus panic is dumb” and that there virus would be gone from America by the end of April.

That July he tweeted the statement “pronouns suck”, which was interpreted by many as a dig at transgender people (since pronouns themselves are a fundamental and inescapable part of the English language).

His then-girlfriend Claire Boucher, aka the electronic musician Grimes, certainly read it that way, responding: “I love you but please turn off ur phone or give me a call. I cannot support hate. Please stop this. I know this isn’t your heart.”

Monday 25 April 2022 17:00 , Adam Smith

The way Mr Musk explains it, these donations do not really signal much about his own personal beliefs. Instead he describes them as simply the cost of doing business in America.

“In order to have your voice be heard in Washington, you have to make some little contribution,” he told the Huffington Post in 2013. “But... I haven’t found Washington to be as corrupt as a lot of people think it is, meaning it’s not as coin-operated as some people may assume, and I’m very actually grateful for that, because if it were we would have zero chance.”

Musk posts a cryptic tweet

Monday 25 April 2022 16:44 , Adam Smith

Elon Musk has just tweeted the elusive statement: “And be my love in the rain”.

This is possibly a reference to the Robert Frost poem, a A Line-storm Song.

The subsequent paragraph reads:

The birds have less to say for themselves In the wood-world’s torn despairThan now these numberless years the elves, Although they are no less there: All song of the woods is crushed like some Wild, easily shattered rose. Come, be my love in the wet woods; come, Where the boughs rain when it blows.

Monday 25 April 2022 16:03 , Adam Smith

If this deal goes through, it would be one of the largest buyouts in corporate history

Twitter is poised to accept the deal

Monday 25 April 2022 16:02 , Adam Smith

Twitter will agree a sale to Elon Musk for $43 billion in cash, Reuters now reports.

It could be announced later on Monday, once its board has met to recommend the transaction to Twitter shareholders, according to unnamed sources.

Twitter cannot solicit other bids once the deal is signed, but would be able to accept an offer from another party if it pays Mr Musk a break-up fee.

What would Twitter look like under Elon Musk?

Monday 25 April 2022 16:00 , Adam Smith

Elon Musk’s history on Twitter could bring extra scrutiny of the social media site just as stricter rules around online content are coming into force, experts have said.

Mr Musk – a prominent user of the service – is well known for his belief in absolute free speech and has suggested he does not think Twitter is living up to its principles on the issue.

However, it has been suggested that in an age of increasingly polarised discourse online and intense scrutiny from legislators over social media needing to do more to protect users from harmful content while avoiding outright censorship, a change of Twitter policy instigated by Mr Musk to loosen rules around speech on the site could create more problems for the company.

“Sowing the seeds of championing ‘free speech’ is one thing, but let’s not forget Elon’s view of simply voicing opinion has been seen as reckless by regulators in the past,” Dan Lane, senior analyst at investment and stock trading app Freetrade, said.

Monday 25 April 2022 15:30 , Adam Smith

“Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square. So it’s just really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they’re able to speak freely within the bounds of the law”, Mr Musk also said.

Twitter has significantly fewer users than either Facebook, YouTube, or Instagram, but often sets the headlines because of its relationship to traditional media.

Monday 25 April 2022 15:00 , Adam Smith

In an interview with Chris Anderson, Mr Musk said that Twitter is “bound by the laws of the country it operates in, so obviously there are some limitations on free speech in the U.S. and of course Twitter would have to abide by those rules.”

But he said it was “quite dangerous” to have “tweets be mysteriously promoted and demoted” and having a “black-box algorithm.”

Why is Elon Musk interested in Twitter?

Monday 25 April 2022 14:22 , Adam Smith

Mr Musk has claimed that Twitter living up to its potential as a “platform for free speech.”

He insists that he’s not interested in making money off Twitter and on Thursday said his motivation sprang from the realization that “having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization.”

Mr Musk has described himself as a “free speech absolutist” and said in a recent interview that the social media company should be regulated only by the laws of the country it operates in.

However, this would allow for much more unpleasant speech - including hate speech and scams - if implemented.

Monday 25 April 2022 14:08 , Adam Smith

The deal is reportedly being brokered now but nothing is concrete; it is possible the talks could go on for longer, or might break down

Monday 25 April 2022 13:49 , Adam Smith

Share trading in Twitter’s stock, before the US stock market opened, sent the price up 5.1 per cent to $51.57, although this is still below Mr Musk’s asking price.

The lack of major movement last week, following the news of Mr Musk’s anouncement, suggested the market is uncertain about the deal.

Twitter is expected to accept Elon Musk’s offer

Monday 25 April 2022 13:37 , Adam Smith

Last week, it was reported that Mr Musk had secured the funding for the deal, after he bought more than 9 per cent of Twitter, making him the biggest company’s biggest shareholder on 9 April.

After a back-and-forth between the billionaire and Twitter’s board, it is possible that a deal could be struck today.