His bold and now apparently decisive takeover bid had come on April 14 when he tweeted his $54.20 for a share deal as a “take or leave” offer.

After the deal was through, he shared a statement on the platform on April 26, in which, he said, “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.”

“Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and users to unlock it,” he added.

While the board including the current CEO Parag Agrawal may have not been thrilled with this development, they eventually had to bow down to the pressure of the shareholders. They had also opposed the takeover bid by taking a “poison pill” which would have made it harder for Musk to go ahead with his dream of owning the 217 million strong platform of users across the world.

In a release, Twitter said that the transaction, which has been unanimously approved by the Twitter Board of Directors, is expected to close in 2022, subject to the approval of Twitter stockholders, the receipt of applicable regulatory approvals, and the satisfaction of other customary closing conditions.

Bret Taylor, Twitter’s Independent Board Chair, said, “The Twitter Board conducted a thoughtful and comprehensive process to assess Elon’s proposal with a deliberate focus on value, certainty, and financing. The proposed transaction will deliver a substantial cash premium, and we believe it is the best path forward for Twitter’s stockholders.”

The post Elon Musk to control Twitter along with SpaceX, Tesla appeared first on International Finance.

Blue Origin is a company owned by Amazon founder Jeff Bezos. Other partners for these launches include United Launch Associate—a joint venture between aerospace majors Lockheed Martin and Boeing. Among the 83 launches, the first two launches are scheduled for before the end of this calendar year. A majority of the rest of the launches will take place between 2024 and 2027 as two of the vehicles finalized for heavy-duty launches are still under development.

Currently, SpaceX enjoys sort of a first-mover advantage having already launched its own constellation of thousands of small satellites in the lower orbit. According to a 2019 Federal Communications Commission application, Amazon aims to put as many as 3,236 such satellites into space and it wants to install 50% of its total target by 2026. Other brands in the segment include Telesat and OneWeb.

At the time of the announcement, one Amazon spokesperson had said that this was the largest satellite vehicle launch deal amounting to billions of dollars without specifying the actual cost of all these launches combined. According to some estimates, the bills for these launches can go well beyond $10 billion.

As a fallout of these marquee deals, some space experts fear that all these launchers recruited to work with Amazon will leave many operators who want to replace old satellites or launch new ones with very few alternatives.

The post Amazon’s Project Kuiper to launch 83 rockets over next 5 years to compete with SpaceX appeared first on International Finance.