@elonmusk<\/a>\u2019s more than 80 million followers.<\/p>\nHe has been outspoken about changes he\u2019d 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.<\/p>\n
After his stake became public, Musk immediately began appealing to fellow users about prospective moves, from turning Twitter\u2019s San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter and adding an edit button for tweets to granting automatic verification marks to premium users. One tweet suggested Twitter might be dying, given that several celebrities with high numbers of followers rarely tweet.<\/p>\n
Unsatisfied with the influence that comes with being Twitter\u2019s largest investor, he has now launched a full takeover, one of the few individuals who can afford it outright. He\u2019s currently worth about $260 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire\u2019s Index, compared with Twitter\u2019s market valuation of about $37 billion.<\/p>\n
In a letter to Twitter\u2019s board, Musk said he believes Twitter \u201cwill neither thrive nor serve [its free speech] societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company\u201d<\/p>\n
The takeover is unlikely to be a drawn-out process. \u201cIf the deal doesn\u2019t work, given that I don\u2019t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,\u201d said Musk.<\/p>\n
Musk informed Twitter\u2019s board over the previous weekend that he thought the company should be taken private, according to today\u2019s statement.<\/p>\n
The $54.20 per share offer is \u201ctoo low\u201d for shareholders or the board to accept, said Vital Knowledge\u2019s Adam Crisafulli in a report, adding that the company\u2019s shares hit $70 less than a year ago.<\/p>\n
Musk has hired Morgan Stanley as his adviser for the takeover. The offer price also includes the number 420, widely recognized as a coded reference to marijuana. He also picked $420 as the share price for possibly taking Tesla private in 2018, a move that brought him scrutiny from the SEC.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
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.<\/p>\n
Twitter has extraordinary potential. \u00a0I will unlock it.<\/p>\n
Elon Musk\u2019s full letter to Twitter\u2019s board<\/em><\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nRead: Musk turns down Twitter\u2019s offer to join its board<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Elon Musk has made a \u201cbest and final\u201d offer to buy Twitter, saying the company has extraordinary potential and he is the person to unlock it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":574952,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9878],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-577946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=577946"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577946\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":577950,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/577946\/revisions\/577950"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/574952"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=577946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=577946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=577946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}