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.