Unboxed #5 - After 5 Years Elon Musk Bought Twitter
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So… Finally… Twitter accepted billionaire Elon Musk’s offer to purchase the social media company for around $44 billion on Monday, 25 Apr 2022. Musk announced his $54.20-per-share bid for the company on April 14.
But did you know, it seems this was going on for 5 years, since 2017? Okay… I know it’s hard to believe. Below is the proof -
Under the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own upon closing the proposed transaction. The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter's closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Mr. Musk disclosed his approximately 9% stake in Twitter.
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."
Parag Agrawal, Twitter's CEO, said, "Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world. Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important."
"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," said Mr. Musk. "I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spambots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it."
Elon Musk Is The Greatest Entrepreneur of All Time?
This whole thing brings us to the ultimate question - is Elon Musk the greatest entrepreneur of all time?
That may sound bombastic or a statement of hyperbole but think about this for a second. Elon Musk is the wealthiest man in the world. He has built four multi-billion dollar companies and a fifth company worth more than $1 trillion dollars. We don’t know the exact valuation of a sixth company, Neuralink, but they have raised over $200 million so it is likely worth at least $1 billion as well. These companies include:
Tesla: $1+ trillion valuation
SpaceX: $100+ billion valuation
PayPal: $100+ billion valuation
The Boring Company: $5.6 billion valuation
Solar City: $2.6 billion valuation
Neuralink: ~ $1 billion valuation
This type of economic value creation is insane. Basically video game numbers. And you can trace it all back to one man — Elon Musk. So does this mean he is the greatest entrepreneur of all time? Probably. Does it really matter? Probably not.
The most impressive part of the whole thing is that the best investment strategy of the last two decades was to simply bet on Elon. It isn’t every day that an entrepreneur with this type of skill, persistence, and success comes along. Investing can be hard as hell sometimes. And other times you just have to find the right person and keep doubling and tripling down on them.
While a good portion of the world keeps hating on Elon Musk, I’ll continue to cheer him on. We need as many entrepreneurs and problem solvers in our society as we can get. Elon is a shining example of how private enterprise can help solve some of society’s greatest issues.
Plus, we shouldn’t think Elon Musk is done yet. He may actually just be getting started.
What’s Next for Elon?
It’s now interesting to see how Elon runs Twitter. Will he be able to revolutionize this social media platform? Will Twitter truly become a Free-Speech platform?
I think time will tell us… So let’s wait and watch…
I just hope Amazon is not next on Elon’s list… Hahaha… Just kidding :-)
That’s it for today :-)
Hope each of you has a great start to your day. I’ll talk to everyone tomorrow.
— Amit
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