What’s a man worth $265 billion to do with his absurd wealth? Buy one of the world’s most popular social networks, apparently. A filing published today can reveal that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 a share in a bid to transform the platform and put it back into the hands of a private company. Musk’s offer equates to around $43 billion, which is quite a chunk of change, even for the richest person on earth.
“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,” reads a short letter that Musk had sent to Bret Taylor, Twitter’s chairman, now disclosed in Exhibit B of the securities filing.
“However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form,” he goes on to say. “Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company. As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced. My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder. Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”
Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for $43 billion, so it can be ‘transformed as private company’ (CNBC)
Twitter shares were up about 4% Thursday morning after closing at $45.85 a share on Wednesday. Tesla’s stock dipped more than 3% on the news.
Musk tapped Morgan Stanley as a financial advisor, according to the filing.
He claimed later on Thursday during a talk at TED2022 that he isn’t interested in acquiring Twitter to make money off it and even said he’s not sure if he’ll even be able to buy the company.
“This is not a way to sort of make money… it’s just that I think my strong, intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive, is extremely important to the future of civilization,” Musk said at TED2022. “But yeah, I don’t care about the economics at all.”
He also said during the talk that he would try to retain as many shareholders as possible for a private company.
I don't know why else it even exists where Whatsapp, iMessage, TikTok, Instagram, and however many other platforms with so much more capability are around. I mean, even old fashioned email ...
Outside of influencers and the media, who really uses Twitter for anything anyway? So why not, Elon - what else are you going to use that money on?
If he wants that **** show, let him have it.
I've considered Twitter to be a passing fad ever since it first came into existence 16 years ago. I'm amazed it has lasted this long.
I think Eric Schmidt said it right, that it is a poor mans email.
The character limit is so restrictive that it makes it an ineffective platform to actually have a conversation or share information.
That and the company has repeatedly utterly failed to monetize their user base.
I see twitter as having absolutely no value what so ever. If that tool Musk wants to waste $43B on it, more power to him. Why doesn't he buy Yahoo while he is at it?
edit - actually google says 273 billion
At least America is still first at being bad at math. ;)
if you can even call something a conversation where you are limited to 280 characters.
273 billion (his wealth per your post) / 332 million (approximate U.S. population) = $822.29 for each American.
And that's if he gave it ALL away, and why would he? It's his.
Large numbers are difficult, I get it, but on the scale of global or even national problems, $273B wouldn't go very far to fix anything at all.
Besides the obvious math fail that others have pointed out. Musk does not have $274 billion dollars sitting around in a bank account that he can give it away. Guessing you skipped math AND economics 101?
At what point do you consider having enough wealth that "more" doesn't really matter?
Or, phrased a bit different, how would you define "wealthy"?
My answer to both of those is the same - the point at which more wealth can no longer increase your quality of life or standard of living. But even that answer is somewhat objective.
That is exactly the point. Most of these founder type billionaires have most of their wealth tied up in shares, and if they sell their shares they risk losing what control they have over their babies (either outright through majority positions or due to alliances with other shareholders). This is why you rarely see them doing philanthropic things until they retire. Once they do they can afford to cash out, and once they cash out they have these huge sums in actually usable money.
You see this time and time again, either from the railroad tycoons of the 19th century, and from the likes of Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. Once they retire and ave given up on controlling their business empires, that is when they turn to philanthropy.
Yup, and even when they do that it's no where near the amount of money they were "worth" when they were in control. However, it's way more than any of us will ever earn in a lifetime. Well, until I win the lottery at least.