By John Ikani
Elon Musk has made a “best and final” offer to buy Twitter Inc., saying the company has extraordinary potential and he is the person to unlock it.
The tech billionaire has said he is willing to pay $54.20 per share to buy 100% of the company. It would be an all-cash offer and would value the social network at $43.4 billion.
Musk announced the offer in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, after turning down a potential board seat at the company.
In the filing with the US financial regulator Mr Musk said: “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.
“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.”
He added: “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”
The 50-year-old who also controls Tesla Inc., first disclosed a stake of about 9% on April 4. Tesla shares fell about 1.5% in pre-market trading on the news.
Twitter said that its board would review the proposal and any response would be in the best interests of “all Twitter stockholders.”
The bid is the latest saga in Musk’s volatile relationship with Twitter. The executive is one of the platform’s most-watched firebrands, often tweeting out memes and taunts to @elonmusk’s more than 80 million followers.
He has been outspoken about changes he’d like to consider imposing at the social media platform, and the company offered him a seat on the board following the announcement of his stake, which made him the largest individual shareholder.
After his stake became public, Musk immediately began appealing to fellow users about prospective moves, from turning Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter and adding an edit button for tweets to granting automatic verification marks to premium users.
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