Twitter will be acquired by billionaire Elon Musk, and will become a private company.

From the press release:

“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,” said Mr. Musk. “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 spam bots, and authenticating all humans. Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”

TPM’s Josh Kovensky spoke on MSNBC just now about Vladimir Putin’s cryptic decision-making, the impact of U.S. sanctions on Russia, and how to think about the possibility of a retaliatory cyber attack on the U.S.

Matt Shuham’s article on the chaos unfolding in Texas right now is worth a read from beginning to end.

In short, in the wake of the state’s new voter restriction law, voters are confused and election administrators are overwhelmed. March primaries are approaching, and the Texas secretary of state’s office seems to be providing little in way of guidance.

For example: Houston’s elections administrators only learned of a key state database for voter information after an Austin official held a press conference to speak out in frustration. Another example: the secretary of state’s online instructions for absentee voters remained out of date until shortly after TPM contacted the office, asking about them.

Read the full piece here.

Earlier today, we published a moving tribute to former Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid by his onetime deputy chief of staff, Bill Dauster.

I spoke with another former Reid aide and friend of TPM this afternoon, Jim Manley. A veteran Senate staffer, Manley had worked as a spokesperson and senior communications advisor for Reid while Reid was Senate Majority Leader.