2 years ago
SpaceX and Tesla CEO Elon Musk, who last week became Twitter’s biggest shareholder, is now offering to buy the social media company, he announced on Thursday.
“I made an offer,” Musk wrote in a tweet, which included a link to a regulatory filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.
That filing contained a letter from Musk to Bret Taylor, the chair of Twitter’s board of directors, presenting his proposal to purchase the remaining shares of Twitter’s stock — those that he does not already own — at a rate of $54.20 per share.
“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,” Musk wrote in the letter.
“However, since making my investment,” he continued, “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.”
Musk called his proposal “my best and final offer” and said he "would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder” if it was not accepted by the board. “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it,” he added.
Musk’s offer is the latest in a series of recent developments between the eccentric billionaire and the social media company.
After Musk took a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter last Monday, making him the company’s biggest shareholder, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced last Tuesday that Musk would be appointed to the company’s board.
Agrawal then announced on Sunday that Musk “has decided not to join our board.” In a staff-wide note to the company, which Agrawal shared on Twitter, Agrawal said of Musk’s decision: “I believe this is for the best.”
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