Elon Musk to Buy Twitter for $44 Billion, Crypto Industry Responds

In the hours and days leading up to the public announcement of Tesla CEO Elon Musk's acquisition of social media giant Twitter, many online users inside and outside the crypto industry were discussing free speech.

Twitter announced Monday that the company will become a privately held company after its board accepted Musk's offer for $54.20 a share in cash, or about $44 billion, for the company's shares. While the deal is expected to close in 2022, it still needs to be approved by Twitter shareholders and certain regulators.

In his last tweet before news of the acquisition became public, Musk said: "I hope even my harshest critics stay on Twitter because that's what free speech is." “Freedom of speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square,” said Tesla’s CEO.

However, many seem to think that the multi-billion-dollar acquisition could have the opposite outcome. Angelo Carusone, president of the nonprofit media watchdog Media Matters for America, expressed concern ahead of the announcement that Twitter's agreement to sell "would be a victory for disinformation and disinformation peddlers," and suggested that Musk could unilaterally decide to allow those People who had been banned from the platform for inciting violence rejoined.

@GoAngelo: "An unconditional sale to Elon Musk would open the floodgates of hate and lies, polluting the entire information ecosystem. Twitter's board needs to take this into account now before the deal closes

— Francisco Taveira (@jftaveira1993) April 25, 2022

Musk often promotes Dogecoin (DOGE) on social media platforms. Dogecoin co-founder Jackson Palmer called the acquisition a "hostile takeover" that runs counter to the idea of freedom. Bitcoin bull Anthony Pompliano congratulated Twitter's new owner, while crypto lending firm BlockFi appeared to take a more comical stance, posting a photo of a mashup of the Dogecoin logo and the Twitter logo.

MicroStrategy founder and CEO Michael Saylor did not comment directly on the acquisition, but instead responded to Musk's tweet with the text of the U.S. Constitution's First Amendment, suggesting he supports the move. House Representative Jody Hice, who backed false allegations of fraud in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, also hailed the deal as a victory for the First Amendment.

It's unclear what supporters of the First Amendment, which does not restrict private employers in the U.S. but prevents Congress from passing laws banning certain types of speech, meant what supporters of the First Amendment meant for Musk's acquisition of Twitter. US courts have previously ruled that freedom of speech does not include incitement to "imminent illegal action". Likewise, Twitter's rules state that the platform does not allow users to "make threats of violence against individuals or groups" or incite others to engage in targeted harassment.

"First Amendment protections for free speech do not apply to private companies" was not a challenge, but now it is

— Hayes Brown (@HayesBrown) April 25, 2022

Musk has more than 83 million followers, far exceeding the 6.3 million followers of former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, and Musk may influence the behavior of the platform and social media as a result of this acquisition. The Tesla CEO said on April 14 that one of his top priorities for Twitter was to eliminate "spam and scam bots and armies of bots," including those linked to crypto scams.

At the time of writing, Twitter shares are trading at $51.70, up more than 32% over the past 30 days.

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