(Reuters) – U.S. billionaire Elon Musk became Twitter Inc’s new owner on Thursday after he completed his $44 billion deal to acquire the social media firm, concluding a dramatic six-month saga.
Musk fired Twitter’s top executives and gave little clarity over how he will achieve the lofty ambitions he has outlined for the influential social media platform.
Twitter initially resisted Musk’s $54.20 offer by adopting a poison pill and later sued the world’s richest man after he announced plans to abandon the offer on concerns about spam accounts on the platform.
The tech entrepreneur, whose net worth is nearly $222 billion according to Forbes, has founded, co-founded or is leading the following companies:
COMPANY NAME YEAR FOUNDED WHAT DOES IT DO?
Neuralink 2016 The brain chip startup aims to
connect humans and computers.
In July last year, it said it
had raised over $200 million
from investors including Google
Ventures.
SpaceX 2002 The company designs and
manufactures aerospace
technology, and aims to land
its rockets on Mars before
2030. It was valued at over
$100 million, CNBC reported
last year.
The Boring 2017 The underground tunneling
Company company aims to build
hyperloops, an ultra-high-speed
ground transportation system
for passenger and cargo, to
solve big city traffic
problems.
The non-profit
OpenAI 2015 research company was started
for the purpose of creating
artificial intelligence that
augments human capabilities and
received up to $1 billion in
funding from backers including
Musk, LinkedIn co-founder Reid
Hoffman and Peter Thiel.
However, Musk decided to exit
OpenAI’s board in 2018.
Tesla Inc 2003 The electric-car maker, which
went public in 2010, is valued
at more than $1 trillion, more
than legacy automakers Ford and
General Motors combined. Last
year, Musk said the company
will probably launch a “Tesla
Bot” humanoid robot prototype
in 2022, designed for
dangerous, repetitive, or
boring work that people don’t
like to do.
PayPal 1998 The fintech company went public
Holdings Inc first in 2002, and was bought
by eBay Inc for $1.5 billion
soon after. It then went public
again in 2015.
The tech entrepreneur’s investments in other smaller startups:
COMPANY NAME YEAR FOUNDED NOTES
Stripe Inc 2010 The digital payments company
was valued at $95 billion in a
fundraising round last year.
Reuters reported in July 2021
that Stripe hired a law firm
in its first major step
towards a stock market debut.
Vicarious 2010 The artificial intelligence
and robotics company, which
has received over $250 million
in funding, also counts Jeff
Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg as
its investors, according to
its website.
(Compiled by Sonia Cheema, Chavi Mehta, Akash Sriram, Tiyashi Datta and Shreyaa Narayanan; Edited by Shounak Dasgupta and Maju Samuel)
