Elon Musk has an agreement to acquire Twitter for about $44 billion
San Francisco (AP): Billionaire Elon Musk has reached an agreement to acquire Twitter for approximately 44 billion, the company said.
The outspoken Tesla CEO, the world's wealthiest person, has said he wants to buy Twitter because he thinks it's not living up to its potential as a platform for "free speech." He says it needs to be transformed as a private company in order to build trust with users and do better at serving what he calls the "societal imperative" of free speech.
Twitter said it will become a privately held company after the sale is closed.
"Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world," its CEO Parag Agrawal said in a tweet. "Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important."
Musk describes himself as a "free-speech absolutist," although he hasn't been exactly clear what he means by that. In a recent TED interview, the billionaire said he'd like to see Twitter err on the side of allowing speech instead of moderating it. He said he'd be "very reluctant" to delete tweets and would generally be cautious about permanent bans. He also acknowledged that Twitter would have to abide by national laws governing speech in markets around the world.
Musk himself, though, regularly blocks social media users who have criticized him or his company and has used the platform to bully reporters who have written critical articles about him or his company.
Twitter's board at first enacted an anti-takeover measure known as a poison pill that could have made a takeover attempt prohibitively expensive. But when Musk outlined the financial commitments he'd lined up to back his offer of 46.5 billion and no other bidders emerged the board opened negotiations with him.
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West Bengal teenager shot dead while shooting reels with handgun
Kolkata, Nov 22: A class eight student was killed after a bullet pierced his skull when he was shooting reels with a handgun in West Bengal's Malda district, police said on Friday.
The incident happened in the Kaliachak area of the district on Thursday afternoon when the handgun, the teenager was using to shoot the video at his house, accidentally fired, a senior police officer said.
Safiul Islam (13) was shooting the video on the roof of his residence at Srirampur under the jurisdiction of Kaliachak police station when a bullet from the 7 mm pistol went off and pierced his skull.
The minor's neighbours and family members rushed to the roof on hearing the sound of a gunshot and took him to a hospital where the doctors declared Islam dead.
"We are trying to trace the source of the gun, which was an improvised pistol having sophisticated features," the officer said.
Another minor, stated to be a friend of the deceased, was detained by police.
He reportedly told the police that the deceased was addicted to mobile handsets and was making reels when the accidental firing took place, the officer said.
It was initially believed that Saiful was alone when the incident occurred, while interrogations revealed that the detained minor was also present there.
He fled the spot amid chaos after the incident, the police officer added.
