Elon Musk took to Twitter to announce that his $44 billion deal with the social media company is being put on hold…
And it has something to do with Twitter’s problem with spam and fake accounts.
Scroll on to find out more…
Now, Elon Musk is the complete embodiment of a classic eccentric billionaire…
Being the founder, CEO, and Chief Engineering Designer of not only Tesla but SpaceX too, he has an awful lot going for him.
As it currently stands, Tesla is the world’s leading electric car company…
With almost 500,000 vehicles being bought and distributed in 2020 alone. The company is pioneering the future of electric car travel with Musk as its CEO.
And then there’s Space X…
Space X became the first private company to successfully launch, orbit, and recover a spacecraft, as well as the first to send a spacecraft to the International Space Station (ISS).
And due to his accomplishments, Musk has cashed in a serious amount of money since starting his businesses…
Back in January 2021, according to the BBC, Musk finally became the richest man in the world, knocking Jeff Bezos out of 1st place.
Quite the achievement, I know!
However, the feud between Musk and Bezos had been ongoing all year, with the pair yo-yo-ing between 1st and 2nd place.
Well, until late last year…
Musk saw a jump of 4.9 percent for the stock price of Tesla at the start of the year – an increase that came just days after finishing the first trading session of the year where they saw an increase of 3.4 percent.
Musk’s net worth subsequently soared shortly after to a staggering $188 billion, as per Bloomberg’s Billionaires Index.
And with Jeff Bezos’ net worth standing at $187 billion, Elon Musk was ultimately placed as the world’s richest man.
Things just kept getting better for Musk, and as of September 7th, he was reportedly worth over $200 billion…
Making him the 3rd person in the world to ever reach that milestone, behind Jeff Bezos and Bernard Arnault, CEO of French luxury brands Moët, Hennessy, and Louis Vuitton.
A great achievement for Musk!
And of course, he went about the news in the most typical “Elon Musk” way.
In response to the news, he simply tweeted, “How strange”…
Before adding: “Well back to work.”
Then, almost a month after beating Bezos and becoming the world’s richest man…
He secured his position in 1st place.
On October 25th, 2021, Musk left his competitors in the dust as he reportedly gained a further $36 million…
Taking him up to a whopping $269 billion according to Forbes.
However, despite being crowned the richest man in the world, it hasn’t all been sunshine and rainbows for the CEO…
In 2021 alone, he split from his long-time girlfriend Grimes, as well as having to pay up for some unpaid taxes due to unrealized gains in Tesla stock. So all in all, it was a choppy year.
Now, Elon really did make the headlines an awful lot last year.
And it was always in celebration of his success.
He started this year off right, too. The $11 billion in taxes he paid have definitely been a thing of the past for him because he almost tripled what he paid in 2021, and it was only the beginning of 2022.
How? You might ask…
It’s all down to his Tesla company.
In 2021, Tesla manufactured 936,000 vehicles, allowing for a rise in stock prices, as per LADbible.
And to put his riches into perspective…
By Musk paying $11 billion in taxes last year, he gave 0.0036 percent of his earnings away. Yep, it might make you want to cry yourself to sleep, but that’s the truth.
And recently, Musk has been showing us all just how wealthy he truly is…
By bidding $44 billion for Twitter, which he already had a 9% acquisition in.
Musk wrote in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Committee: “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.
“However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”
Yep, that’s right, Musk met with Twitter executives to discuss the possibility of taking on the company.
As per the Wall Street Journal, he got financing for $46.5 billion in order to make it happen.
And they accepted making Musk the new owner of Twitter!
As impossible as this might sound, there was a reason why his offer was too good to miss…
According to the WSJ, Twitter shareholders wanted a payout from the company, so his bid couldn’t have come at a better time.
Musk has already made it clear that he wants to make some changes to the site…
One being longer Tweets and another being the excessive amount of ads being toned down. He also suggested that the site would be better off going private.
Opinions on Musk’s acquisition of the site have been very mixed.
While some have celebrated it, others are very much against Musk taking over.
Not only that, but many have questioned why Musk didn’t donate the money to charity instead.
People have pointed out that money of that amount could have been used to help millions of people around the world.
But now, attention has turned to another of Musk’s plans for the social media platform.
He has vowed to unban Donald Trump from Twitter and people aren’t happy about it…
Taking to Twitter, one person wrote: “If Trump comes back, I’m out. I know that doesn’t matter much but I’m hoping Twitter takes a big hit when and if Trump comes back.”
“Dear Elon Musk, No one wants Trump on Twitter. Sincerely, All Americans,” another tweeted.
Musk discussed his plans to reverse the permanent ban that Trump currently faces while speaking at a Financial Times conference.
When asked during the conference if he will allow Trump to rejoin the platform, Musk said that the general question is “should Twitter have permanent bans.”
Musk said he believes that “permanent bans should be extremely rare” noting that they should be “really reserved” for accounts such as “bots, spam, or scam accounts.”
Musk then further added that he thought it was “not correct to ban Donald Trump” following the attack on Capitol Hill in 2021, while claiming it was a “morally bad decision” and “foolish.”
“I think that was a mistake because it alienated a large part of the country and did not ultimately result in Donald Trump not having a voice,” Musk said.
He later added that “he would reverse the permanent ban,” though he did note that he doesn’t own Twitter just yet.
Stating that he believes they should “not have perma-bans,” Musk further said that it does not mean that someone gets to say “whatever they want if they say something that is illegal” then instead there should be a “time-out” or “temporary suspension.”
“I think perma-bans fundamentally undermine trust in Twitter as a town square where everyone can voice their opinion,” he said.
Although it doesn’t look like Musk will be unbanning anyone for the time being, as he recently announce he’s put his Twitter purchase on hold…
He tweeted the update on Friday, writing: “Twitter deal temporarily on hold pending details supporting calculation that spam/fake accounts do indeed represent less than 5% of users,”
Following his first tweet, Musk wrote that he was “still committed to acquisition.”
In his first post, Musk included an article by Reuters about Twitter’s problem with fake accounts.
In the report it stated that these spam accounts made up just 5 percent of all accounts on the social media platform and that this was a “reasonable” number…
However, it also mentioned this number could actually be higher as it hasn’t been investigated independently yet.
It appears Musk is waiting for that to be confirmed before he goes ahead with the purchase.
However, some think he might back out of the deal, which will mean he has to pay a $1 billion fee to Twitter.