Elon Musk, who recently bought Twitter for $44B, plans to make the social media app private for crypto support. Binance announces an investment of $500M to back Musk on his Twitter deal.
Twitter is one of the most popular and most authentic social media platforms in the world. According to Statista, Twitter has 206M daily active users as of January 2022 with a market cap of $38.02B.
With so much engagement and the worth of a social media app, Elon Musk announced he sold 9.6 million shares of Tesla, worth $8.4 billion, to take over Twitter.
This news shocked the world and Twitter saw a sudden surge of interest and worth in the market. Seeing that the world’s richest man becoming the largest shareholder of the bird app, the world anticipates what will be Twitter’s future.
Musk’s Twitter takeover intentions
Musk has been interested in buying Twitter for many years and constantly attacked the biggest social media app for not encouraging free speech. On Bloomberg, Musk expressed “Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.”
In other words, his intention to buy Twitter is to make it a private company, completely independent of third-party control. He claims that this buyout is to protect the “freedom of speech.”
Musk finally buys Twitter
Initially, Twitter agreed to make Elon Musk a shareholder, but he had a bigger plan, i.e., to buy out Twitter completely. Given the current value of $38B, the bid for $44B sounded quite high, and Musk was adamant about this price.
The Twitter board had no intention to give way to Elon Musk. They denied Musk’s proposal at first. They made every effort to fight against the richest man’s constant struggle to take over the bird app.
Finally, on 25th April, Twitter agreed at the price of $54.20 per share or $44B in total, making Musk the biggest shareholder of the social media platform.
Musk to make Twitter a crypto support
Following his takeover, Musk immediately announced his plans to make Twitter more crypto-friendly for the community. In other words, the social media platform will become more decentralized for users.
The recent filing at SEC reports stated that Musk has around $7.14 billion in total.
Many news outlets reported that he received funds from 18 companies including Binance, Fidelity, and Oracle. The above image shows the list of investors interested in Twitter with Musk.
Binance backs Musk with $500M investment
Binance, the largest crypto exchange in the world, recently announced it will back Elon Musk by giving $500M to make Twitter a crypto-friendly platform. The company is optimistic that Musk’s takeover can boost sales and solve all the piled-up problems for Twitter.
In an interview with CNBC, The CEO of Binance, Changpeng Zhao said, “We’re excited to be able to help Elon realize a new vision for Twitter. We hope to be able to play a role in bringing social media and Web3 together and broadening the use and adoption of crypto and blockchain technology.”
As a Web3 enthusiast, Zhao believes Elon Musk will speed up the development of the web3 world through Twitter, as it is the biggest social media network in the world.
The CEO told a British newspaper that they were interested as “third party investors” and that “He [Elon Musk] didn’t have a plan for Twitter. There isn’t, like, a business plan. So it wasn’t that type of discussion.”
Although it is a blank check, CEO Zhao said, “After the investment … Elon will figure out what he wants to do, and we’ll be supportive of that.”
What will be the future of Musk’s Twitter?
Since the acquisition, many Twitter staff are anxious about the new changes taking place for the social media app. However, there is a lot of uncertainty about how the app will run.
The SEC filing shows that Twitter might be under threat of a major staff leaving the company. Although there has been an increase in job popularity among individuals on Twitter, there is a lack of a business model from Musk.
Recently, he did tweet about Twitter’s hiring criteria:
The recent Twitter report shows that the company might suffer from a loss. It said, “The announcement and pendency of our agreement to be acquired by affiliates of Elon Musk may have an adverse effect on our business results, and a failure to complete the merger could have a material and adverse effect on our business, results of operation, financial condition, cash flows, and stock price.”
For the crypto community and Musk fans, the Twitter acquisition might be good news. Just as Binance believes that Twitter will fulfill the vision of Web3, the crypto community also believes that making Twitter crypto support is a good decision.
Michael Sonnenshein, CEO of crypto asset manager Grayscale says, “I think that bodes really well for how Twitter as a private organization may be able to be even more nimble and more agile in terms of servicing these growing ecosystems, be it crypto or other new technologies.”
Being the world’s richest man and CEO of a leading electric car company, Elon Musk has made a name in the crypto world as well. Only the future will tell how Twitter as crypto support will benefit users, advertisers, investors, and the company itself.