Twitter announced on Monday that it has reached an agreement for Elon Musk to buy the notable social media platform. 

The deal is reportedly valued at around $44 billion, and as a result, the social media company will be made private. 

Under the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash per share, representing a 38% premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, 2022. 

Bret Taylor, Twitter’s Independent Board Chair, said about the deal: “The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter's stockholders."

This deal acquisition marks the end of a weeks-long back-and-forth between Twitter and the world’s wealthiest person. Musk’s vision is to help the social media platform live up to its true potential as a free speech platform. 

“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,” the Tesla CEO said in a statement. 

He continued, “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.”

Last week, Musk announced that he had lined up $46.5 billion in financing to acquire the company. This came a week after he first revealed his 9% stake in the platform, the largest shareholder of the firm. 

Twitter said the transaction was approved unanimously by its 11-member board of directors, and is expected to be finalized by the end of the year. 

Hours before the deal was officially announced, Musk took to Twitter to detail what he wants to see from users. 

In the statement, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, said, “Twitter has a purpose and relevance that impacts the entire world.”

Musk, himself, is a notoriously heavy Twitter user, frequently posting tweets to his more than 83 million followers on the platform. 

With Musk soon to be at the helm, it remains to be seen how the more than 200 million Twitter users will be impacted by the ownership change and how online speech will be changed. 

Questions also remain pertaining to whether or not its current leadership group will remain in their executive roles.