Takeovers: After Twitter, Elon Musk eyes Coca Cola, McDonalds!
Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: Until April 4, nobody knew Elon Musk had 9 percent shares in microblogging social media platform Twitter; in the next 22 days flat, he bought it out for a whopping USD 44 billion.
And who knows he could evolve Twitter as the first social media platform to network the Earth with Mars, where his company SpaceX plans to take humans in 2026?
He is also planning a private Moon mission while America’s National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and Nokia prepare to start wi-fi on the Earth’s only natural satellite later this year.
Now Musk, the world’s richest man with a net worth of USD 266 billion, is eyeing soft drink behemoth Coca Cola and snacks giant McDonalds, the media reported on Thursday.
In a string of tweets, the Tesla chief claimed that he has set eyes on Coca Cola to “put cocaine back in” and “McDonald’s to fix ice-cream machines”.
But nobody knows, as they did not expect on April 4, whether he is just joking.
“Next I’m buying Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in,” Musk tweeted on Friday.
Tagging to an old tweet, he said, “Listen, I can’t do miracles”. He, however, promised to make ” Twitter maximum fun”.
An unconventional innovator, entrepreneur, and investor, Musk, 50, is famous for throwing new ideas, sometimes light-hearted, on his Twitter timeline. Often, his tweets spark debates on different issues, including free speech, that polarises users of this microblogging site.
After three weeks of a similar debate, Twitter on Monday confirmed the sale of the company to Tesla boss Elon Musk for USD 44 billion.
Twitter shareholders will receive USD 54.20 in cash for each share of the stock they own, matching Musk’s original offer and marking a 38 percent premium over the stock price the day before Musk revealed his stake in the company, the media reported.
The deal caps off a whirlwind news cycle in which Musk, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO, became one of Twitter’s largest shareholders. He was offered, but he turned down a seat on its board. Instead, he bid to buy out the company itself — all in less than a month, in what was the fastest takeover ever.
“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,” Musk said in a statement.
“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,” he added.
