Elon Musk has made an offer to buy Twitter Inc., saying the company has extraordinary potential and he is the person to unlock it.
The Tesla owner posted on Twitter “I made an offer.”
The offer is a $54.20 per share in cash bid, representing a 54% premium over the Jan. 28 closing price and a valuation of about $43 billion. As news of the announcement by the market the social media company’s shares soared 18% in pre-market trading.
The 50 year old 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 earlier this week. The billionaire richest man in the world , who also controls Space X, first disclosed a stake of about 9% on April 4. Tesla shares fell about 1.5% in pre-market trading on the news.
Musk publicly criticized Twitter for not being democratic enough. In a Twitter poll, he asked his followers whether they believe that Twitter “rigorously adheres” to the principle of free speech as “essential to a functional democracy.” He hinted that he has some sort of plan regarding Twitter, saying that the consequences of the poll “will be important.”
Musk has more than 80 million followers and ranks in the top 10 most popular Twitter users globally.
The 50-year-old’s personal fortune is estimated at $289bn, almost $100bn more than the world’s next richest person, the Amazon founder, Jeff Bezos.
“Twitter, Inc 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,” it said in the release.
Dallas Mavericks Owner Mark Cuban tweeted “I think Twitter will do everything possible not to sell the company. They will try to get a friendly to come in and buy Elon’s shares and get him out.”
He also alludes that others may be in the running to buy Twitter as the stock price goes up.
