The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the world’s richest person made a “best and final” offer to buy the social media company in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission after turning down a seat on Twitter’s board of directors.
Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for $43 billion to unlock its extraordinary potential. That offer states that he will pay $54.20 per share in cash, which is 54% higher than the company’s share price the day before Musk began his recent investment in the company. In total, Musk’s offer for 100% of the company is valued at around a staggering $43 billion.
“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Elon Musk wrote in an email to Bret Taylor, Twitter’s chairman of the board.
Musk is the founder, CEO, and chief engineer at SpaceX; early-stage investor, CEO, and product architect of Tesla, founder of The Boring Company, and co-founder of Neuralink and OpenAI. With an estimated net worth of around US$273 billion as of April 2022. Musk is the wealthiest person in the world according to both the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the Forbes real-time billionaires list.
On April 4, Twitter confirmed that Musk had acquired a significant stake in the social network. By purchasing a 9% stake in Twitter, Musk became Twitter’s largest shareholder. The next day, Twitter announced that the entrepreneur best known for his work at Tesla and SpaceX would be joining the board of directors. As a board member, Musk wouldn’t be allowed to own more than 14.9% of the company. But Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal later announced a major reversal. Musk told the company that he would not join the board. Since then, there has been a ton of speculation about Musk’s next move.
Elon Musk has had disputes with the Securities and Exchange Commission after he tweeted in 2019 that he had the money to take Tesla private at $420 per share. That didn’t happen but caused the stock to jump and attracted regulators’ attention.
According to Musk, the social media company needs to go private because it can “neither thrive nor serve” free speech in its current state.
“If the deal doesn’t work, given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I accept I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” said Musk.
Musk also hinted that he may want to change how Twitter operates. For instance, he has called for wider access to “verified” accounts, or Twitter accounts that are accompanied by a blue checkmark, which is held in reserve for public figures, journalists, and other people in the news.
Musk believes there needs to be a major change needed at Twitter, and, from this offer, he believes he’s the one to make it happen.
“Board of Directors will carefully review the proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the Company and all Twitter stockholders,” Twitter confirmed.
