Elon Musk, the tech billionaire who made waves across the world after recently becoming the largest Twitter shareholder, is offering to buy 100% of Twitter at $54.20 per share in cash in a deal that could exceed $40 billion, Bloomberg News reported Thursday morning:
Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, according to an updated 13D filing, Bloomberg News reports.
Musk offered to “acquire all of the outstanding Common Stock of the Issuer not owned by the Reporting Person for all cash consideration valuing the Common Stock at $54.20 per share.”
According to an SEC filing submitted Wednesday evening, Musk told Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor that this was his “best and final offer.”
Musk’s letter to Taylor can be read here:
Bret Taylor
Chairman of the Board,
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.
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.
/S/ Elon Musk
The offer comes just days after Musk declined to take a position on Twitter’s board of directors.
“Elon Musk has decided not to join our board,” Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal said in a statement Sunday evening. “The Board and I had many discussions about Elon joining the board, and with Elon directly. We were excited to collaborate and clear about the risks. We also believed that having Elon as a fiduciary of the company where he, like all board members, has to act in the best interests of the company and all our shareholders, was the best path forward. The board offered him a seat.”
“We announced on Tuesday that Elon would be appointed to the Board contingent on a background check and formal acceptance,” Agrawal continued. “Elon’s appointment to the board was to become officially effective 4/9, but Elon shared that same morning that he will no longer be joining the board. I believe this is for the best. We have and will always value input from our shareholders whether they are on our Board or not. Elon is our biggest shareholder and we will remain open to his input.”
“There will be distractions ahead, but our goals and priorities remain unchanged,” the statement concluded. “The decisions we make and how we execute is in our hands, no one else’s. Let’s tune out the noise, and stay focused on the work and what we’re building.”
As noted by Bloomberg, “Musk can afford a takeover of Twitter. He’s currently worth about $260 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, compared with Twitter’s market valuation of about $37 billion.”
Musk’s offer values the company close to $43 billion.
This is a breaking news story; please check back for updates.