Elon Musk has completed his roughly $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, paying $54.20 a share and ending a six-month takeover saga that moved from unsolicited bid to signed merger, attempted termination and Delaware litigation. Twitter’s October 27 securities filing says the merger was consummated and Twitter became a wholly owned subsidiary of Musk-controlled X Holdings I.

The closing instantly changes the governance of one of the world’s most prominent communications platforms. The same filing shows Musk becoming Twitter’s sole director as the prior board ceased serving, concentrating authority over product, staffing, content policy and capital structure in the hands of the new owner.

Shareholders receive the original $54.20 cash price

The transaction closes on the terms negotiated in April. Each eligible share was converted into the right to receive $54.20 in cash. A New York Stock Exchange notice records that trading was suspended before the market opened October 28 following the merger and sets the process for delisting Twitter’s common stock.

The price is particularly notable because technology valuations and credit markets have deteriorated since the merger agreement was signed. Musk spent the summer trying to terminate the deal, arguing that Twitter had not provided sufficient information about spam and false accounts. Twitter sued for specific performance, maintaining that Musk’s objections did not give him a contractual right to walk away.

The acquisition therefore transfers to Musk a company purchased at an April valuation in a substantially weaker October market. The financing structure includes billions of dollars of bank debt, meaning Twitter will operate with a different capital structure and greater interest expense than it carried as a publicly traded company.

Delaware’s deadline helped force a decision

The final weeks were shaped by the Delaware Court of Chancery. On October 6, Chancellor Kathaleen McCormick stayed the litigation until 5 p.m. October 28 to allow the parties to close. The order warned that if the merger was not completed by then, the court would set a November trial.

That created a hard timetable after Musk reversed course and said he intended to proceed on the original terms. Rather than risk a trial over whether Twitter could compel performance, Musk and his financing partners moved to complete the transaction.

Post-closing corporate filings reflect the change in control. An October 28 registration amendment, signed by Musk, terminates registration of securities under employee compensation plans now that Twitter is no longer a standalone public company.

Executive turnover begins immediately

The ownership change was followed by rapid leadership departures. Contemporary reporting on the closing says Chief Executive Parag Agrawal, Chief Financial Officer Ned Segal, legal and policy chief Vijaya Gadde and general counsel Sean Edgett were fired or left as Musk assumed control.

Those changes signal that Musk does not intend to operate Twitter as a passive financial investment. He has criticized the company’s product pace and content-moderation decisions, discussed reducing spam and automated accounts, and suggested changes to verification and subscription services.

The immediate management question is how quickly those ambitions can be translated into operating plans without destabilizing advertising revenue, employee retention or platform reliability. Twitter remains overwhelmingly dependent on advertising, and major brands have well-developed concerns about content adjacency and brand safety.

Musk tries to reassure advertisers while promising change

Hours before the acquisition closed, Musk published a message to advertisers arguing that Twitter should not become a “free-for-all” environment and that advertising can be useful when relevant. A contemporary account of the message described it as an effort to calm businesses worried that looser moderation could make the platform less suitable for commercial campaigns.

The tension is structural. Musk has said he favors broader speech protections and has criticized prior moderation decisions. Advertisers, meanwhile, generally want predictable rules and controls around where their brands appear. How the new owner balances those priorities may determine whether Twitter can maintain revenue while changing its policies.

A public company becomes a private experiment

Twitter’s delisting removes the quarterly disclosure obligations and shareholder pressures that shaped its public-company era, giving Musk more freedom to reorganize operations. But private ownership does not remove the need for cash flow. Debt service, employee costs and infrastructure expenses remain real, and the purchase price leaves little room for complacency about revenue.

The closing ends the legal question that dominated the summer: whether Musk would be forced to buy Twitter. It opens a much larger operational one: what he will do with it. The platform now belongs to an owner who has promised significant changes but inherits a business dependent on cautious advertisers, complex moderation systems and a global user base that treats Twitter as both a private service and a public forum.

After months of uncertainty, one fact is finally settled. The merger has closed at $54.20 a share, Twitter is private, and Elon Musk is in control.