It was not immediately clear what the breakup fee would be or who would run the new company.

Twitter’s outsized importance as a mouthpiece for politicians, political dissidents and activists belies its relatively small size.

The White House declined to comment on the deal, but said that US President Joe Biden has long been concerned about the power of social media platforms.

Although it is only about a tenth of the size of far larger social media platforms like Meta’s Facebook, it has been credited with helping spawn the Arab Spring uprising and accused of playing a role in the January 6, 2021, storming of the US Capitol.

After Twitter banned former president Donald Trump over concerns around incitement of violence following last year’s US Capitol attack by his supporters, Musk tweeted: “A lot of people are going to be super unhappy with West Coast high tech as the de facto arbiter of free speech.”

Earlier, Republicans cheered the news of a possible Musk buyout of Twitter, betting on Trump’s reinstatement on the service.

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Trump, whose company is building a rival to Twitter called Truth Social, said he will not return to Twitter, according to a Fox News interview.

Reuters

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