Elon Musk has said to possible investors that he could return the company to public ownership in a few years, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Musk, who announced last week that he’d buy the company and take it private for $44 billion, said he wants to stage an IPO of Twitter within three years of buying it.
The deal isn’t complete yet and plans to close later in 2022.
Musk’s buyout is coming from private equity firms that might help to lower the $21 billion he plans to pay to help finance it, with the rest of the money coming from loans.
Despite being the world’s richest man, Musk had a hard time getting together the funds for it all. Twitter, which had been reticent about the deal prior, finally got on board once he was able to solidly propose a price tag.
Musk has given few details on his plans for the social media giant. He’s said he wants it to censor less in its content moderation, and the report notes that he once said he doesn’t care whether he makes money on the deal.
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The report notes how private equity firms often take companies private, intending to fix them up out of the spotlight and then take them public within several years.
PYMNTS wrote that Musk’s plans for Twitter might include monetizing tweets, along with cracking down on executive and board pay and cutting staff.
Read on: Elon Musk’s Income Plans for Twitter Include Charging for Tweets
Musk said free speech was “the bedrock of a functioning democracy” and Twitter was a “digital town square.”
“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 spambots, and authenticating all humans,” he said. “Twitter has tremendous potential — I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”
