Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for $43 billion
After acquiring a 9.2% passive stake in Twitter last week, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has proposed an offer to buy 100% of Twitter at it’s current market price of $54.20 per share, equalling $43.4 billion.
The announcement has seen Twitter shares rise by 11.97% compared to yesterday’s value in pre market trading.
Twitter announced that Musk was set to join the board after his initial investment in the company, which saw the Tesla founder acquire 73,486,938 shares in the company, more than the social network’s former CEO Jack Dorsey, however, Musk later declined, opening speculation on whether he was planning a full takeover.
Two weeks ago prior to his investment, Musk hit-out at Twitter, questioning whether the platform adheres to free speech principles.
“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. “However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. 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,” he added.
Twitter has issued a statement confirming it has received Musk’s offer and will consider it “carefully:”
“[Twitter] today confirmed it has received an unsolicited, non-binding proposal from Elon Musk to acquire all of the Company’s outstanding common stock for $54.20 per share in cash. The Twitter 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.”