It’s official: Twitter announced today that it has agreed to a sale to billionaire Elon Musk for about $44 billion. Musk will take the firm private.

“The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing,” Twitter board chair Bret Taylor said. “The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”

“Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world,” Twitter’s CEO Parag Agrawal added. “Deeply proud of our teams and inspired by the work that has never been more important.”

Twitter shareholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own, and that price represents a 38 percent premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, 2022.

Musk has been pretty vocal about free speech issues on Twitter, and despite widespread criticism of his understanding of this term, he has perhaps not surprisingly decided to address that issue in the announcement post.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Mr. Musk said. “I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential—I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

The deal is expected to conclude by the end of 2022, assuming it is approved by Twitter stockholders and regulators.

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