By
Steve Muchoki
April 25th, 2024
Dogecoin price benefited largely from the Elon Musk Twitter takeover, as the billionaire now looks to take company private.
Billionaire businessman Elon Musk finally closed out a deal to buy Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) for $44 billion. The acquisition comes barely two weeks after Musk first announced his intention to buy the prominent social media platform. In the final hour leading up to the deal’s conclusion, popular meme token Dogecoin (DOGE) was up 15%. This happened after it jumped to 27% following initial reports that Musk and Twitter had officially opened discussions.
By the time the Twitter board officially accepted Musk’s buyout deal, Dogecoin was trading over 20% higher at an intraday price of $0.1711. This may come as no surprise because Musk is a well-known promoter of the dog-themed crypto. In fact, the Tesla Inc (NASDAQ: TSLA) CEO has used Twitter to shill DOGE on several occasions to great effect. Currently, DOGE is also once more among CoinMaketCap’s top 10 largest digital currencies, with a total market value of $22 billion.
Following news of the acquisition, DOGE’s main rival Shiba Inu (SHIB) also spiked 4%.
A New Look for Twitter?
Twitter’s board finally acquiesced to Musk’s offer to buy after rebuffing the billionaire’s takeover attempt a few days ago. Pursuant to the agreement, shareholders of the microblogging platform will get $54.20 per share. According to a Twitter press release, the share price is 38% higher than the closing price on April 1st, the day before Musk disclosed his 9% stake. To begin the week, Twitter’s share price was around $50.65, eventually going up to $52.01 in intraday trading.
Musk, who was initially supposed to join Twitter’s board as its largest individual shareholder, plans to take Twitter private with this acquisition. According to the outspoken businessman, this move is the only way the platform’s core of “free speech” can be preserved. As he put it then:
“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 also previously highlighted some of the key changes he expected to bring in upon assuming ownership of Twitter. In his own words:
“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.”
Musk Previously Hinted at Twitter Support for Dogecoin
Musk also expressed an interest in accepting Dogecoin as payment for a premium service from Twitter. Back in late 2021, the Tesla and SpaceX chief had stated that the meme token is better suited for payments than Bitcoin (BTC).
To fund the Twitter purchase, Musk earmarked the sum of $46.5 billion in debt and equity financing. Furthermore, Musk had said that his proposed offer almost a fortnight ago was his “best and final.”
Twitter’s top corporate heads did not provide any reason for the decision to turn around and sell. However, CEO Parag Agrawal simply stated that “This is for the best.”
Analysts speculate that Twitter agreed to sell to Musk before reporting its disappointing first quarter.