Elon Musk completed his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter Inc., according to people familiar with the matter, putting the world’s richest man in charge of the struggling social network after six months of public and legal wrangling over the deal.
Shareholders will be paid $54.20 per share, and Twitter will now operate as a private company. The completion caps a convoluted saga that began in January with the billionaire’s quiet accumulation of a major stake in the company, his growing exasperation with how it’s run and an eventual merger accord that he later spent months trying to unravel.
On Oct. 4, Musk agreed to proceed on his originally proposed terms, and a Delaware Chancery Court judge gave the two sides until Oct. 28 to wrap up the deal. That deadline was met, and now Musk, who is chief executive officer of both Tesla Inc. and SpaceX, also controls Twitter, a service he uses often but criticizes openly, and that he has promised to change dramatically. The company’s shares are no longer expected to trade on the New York Stock Exchange.
