The board of directors at Twitter has agreed to Elon Musk’s private purchase of the social media platform for $44 billion.

Musk will pay $54.20 per share to take the company private and will become the sole owner of the micro-blogging site.

He had originally purchased a 9% share of stock, becoming the company’s largest single stockholder, but later turned down a seat on Twitter’s board of directors and launched an effort to acquire the platform outright.

The Tesla Motors founder contends that his ownership of Twitter will lead to more openness on the platform as some have accused the company of managing the type of speech that is permitted there.

I hope that even my worst critics remain on Twitter, because that is what free speech means

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 25, 2022

Twitter stock price closed at $48.93 on Friday.

The deal make take up to 9 months to close.