Elon Musk Offers to Straight Up Buy Twitter in Cash, Says The Company “Needs to be Transformed”

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, has made a surprise bid to purchase Twitter outright, reversing course just a few days after opting not to join the board of directors.

Earlier on Thursday, Twitter Inc. disclosed in a regulatory filing that Musk had written to the business on Wednesday, proposing to purchase the remaining shares. With a 9 percent stake in Twitter, the 50-year-old business magnate, who is the world’s wealthiest man, is already the company’s largest shareholder.

Musk said in the letter that he will make a final “best and highest” offer of $54.20 per share of Twitter stock, which would amount to $41.3 billion, and that this would be his last offer. Musk’s bid is marginally greater than Twitter’s current market capitalization of $36.7 billion, which is significantly lower than Musk’s offer.

“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 says in the proposal. “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.”

Several weeks after revealing that he had been purchasing Twitter stock in practically daily batches since January 31, Musk was offered a position on Twitter’s board of directors under the condition that he did not possess more than 14.9 percent of the company’s outstanding stock, according to a filing. The agreement fell through, and Musk responded with a series of since-deleted tweets about how to improve the firm — all of this before the takeover effort was announced, USA Today notes.

A lawsuit was filed on Tuesday on behalf of Twitter stockholders against Musk, who they claim did not file a Schedule 13 with the SEC within the statutory time frame and instead proceeded to acquire Twitter stock. As stated in the complaint, Musk was able to purchase Twitter stock for less money during the Class Period because he failed to declare his ownership position in time.