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.
Discussion (19 replies)
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Go musk go! ;)
I kinda hope he does buy it and take it private. I mean, really, what could possibly go wrong? I really only see two ways Twitter continues to exist: In one, it turns into another 4Chan and only the "special people" stick around. In the other, it essentially just stays as another advertisement medium -- either your hawking a product or your hawking your influencer cred/brand. In either scenario average people serve no purpose other than to be followers. Sure you can tweet out to your hearts desire, but unless you have thousands and millions of followers, who cares? You may as well be the begger on the street corner who mumbles to themselves as cars drive by.
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?
Well clearly he's buying Twitter so he can shut down the user who tracks his personal jet and posts it's where abouts on Twitter.
Meh,
If he wants that shit 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?
Sheesh 265 billion? Musk could give every USA citizen a million bucks each and still have 264 billion laying around. He wouldn't even feel it. This makes me sad when I look at my retirement account and wonder how I'm going to live off of that....
edit - actually google says 273 billion
Just depends on whatever Tesla stock is trading for that day - that’s where all that is tied up into. Tesla drops by $1 and the headline is “Musk loses $14B in one day”
Well said. This pretty much sums up my thoughts on it. That being said, it obviously appeals to a broad range of people for whatever reason.
There are over 400 million Americans. He would need 400 trillion to give every American a million.
At least America is still first at being bad at math. ;)
Well he already has 2 companies that are of no use to me, why not a third one while he is at it.
Yeah, 265 billion most of which is in Tesla stock, a company with grossly overvalued stock price. According the stock market Tesla is worth as much as all other US carmakers combined, yet produces 1% of the number of cars while barely making a profit. And SpaceX is on the verge in bankruptcy apparently. So that 265 billion is paper thin.
As for twitter, I still don't understand how one can use that in any meaningful way. It constantly shows out of context messages to me. Someone I followed replies to someone, and it only shows the reply, but not the OP. What good is that? Also every message is it's own thread, it is a squid, with no telling where a conversation begins and ends.
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.
Well it's about 8 times what the pandemic cost my country in extra expenses, on a scale of countries like the USA its small potatoes.
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?