They get bought out by the people buying the company, often at a price significantly higher than the current stock price. Shareholders must hold a vote and accept the offer of the purchasers

They receive cash for each share of twitter stock held. Elon’s buy price works out to $54.20/share so if you held twitter stock you will receive the equivalent amount in cash for esch share but they will no longer hold ownership or shares in the company after.

Once a buyout offer is accepted at some price per share, then all the registered shareholders are notified and paid for the shares they own. The shares are then nullified. In effect, the shareholders at the time of the buyout are paid by the buyer according to the terms of the purchase. The payment could be cash, shares in another company or some combination thereof.

When a public company is sold, it's the shares that are actually being sold. The official offer wouldn't have been for $44B, it would have been for something like $55 per share. The shareholders would have had some sort of vote to approve the deal, and once the sale was complete they would have sold their shares for that price.

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They get paid the agreed upon value negotiated between Musk and the Twitter board, which was something like $54/share.

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