Elon Musk Wants to Buy Twitter for $43 Billion

After becoming Twitter’s biggest shareholder earlier this month, the CEO of Tesla has now made an offer to acquire 100% of the company to make it private (via Bloomberg). Musk is offering $54.20 per share in cash, which values Twitter at approximately $43 billion.

Musk announced the offer in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission yesterday, and Twitter has confirmed the “unsolicited, non-binding proposal” from Musk in a press release today. “The Twitter Board of Directors will carefully review the proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the Company and all Twitter stockholders,” the company said.

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This hostile takeover comes just a few days after Musk refused a seat on Twitter’s board of directors. In a letter to Bret Taylor, Chairman of the Board, Musk explained that Twitter “needs to be transformed as a private company” to allow him to “unlock” its full potential. My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” Musk said.

Musk is the richest man on the planet with a $260 billion net worth according to Bloomberg. In comparison, Twitter is currently valued at $37 billion. If Musk seems absolutely serious about acquiring Twitter, the notorious troll apparently couldn’t resist including a marijuana (420) reference in his $54.20 offer price.

A couple of days ago, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal warned that “There will be distractions ahead” after Musk became the company’s biggest shareholder. If the Twitter CEO was definitely on point, Twitter shares already jumped 13% in pre-market trading.

You can find Elon Musk’s full letter to Twitter’s board below:

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.

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Conversation 43 comments

  • SherlockHolmes

    Premium Member
    14 April, 2022 - 8:53 am

    <p>Would be a reason to leave Twitter. </p>

  • thejoefin

    Premium Member
    14 April, 2022 - 8:59 am

    <p>I sure hope this doesn’t happen.</p>

  • bbennett40

    14 April, 2022 - 9:03 am

    <p>Might be a reason to actually use Twitter.</p>

    • jtt888

      14 April, 2022 - 1:35 pm

      <p>It’s bad news… if you enjoy censorship and suppression of alternative opinions. For everyone else not afraid of dialogue and different opinions, would be good news. </p>

      • thejoefin

        Premium Member
        14 April, 2022 - 1:57 pm

        <p>Twitter is a business, so it would be ‘curation’ not censorship. If you think you could make a better Twitter, then go for it, don’t impose your belief system on people who like Twitter as it is.</p>

        • Donte

          14 April, 2022 - 4:03 pm

          <p>Twitter is one of the worst thing to happen to society. I hope he buys it and sets it on fire. </p>

          • thejoefin

            Premium Member
            14 April, 2022 - 4:13 pm

            <p>lol, maybe you are being a bit dramatic here. If you don’t like twitter, don’t use it, simple.</p>

          • BizTechSherpa

            14 April, 2022 - 4:19 pm

            <p>People with a lot of money don’t buy things and set them on fire. </p>

        • lvthunder

          Premium Member
          14 April, 2022 - 5:05 pm

          <p>It is censorship when you kick people off for having opinions you don’t like. Especially when the platform is the only one the press talks about. When’s the last time you heard someone on the news say according to so and so on Facebook or Instagram this happened. Almost never. It’s always Twitter.</p>

      • bbennett40

        14 April, 2022 - 2:38 pm

        <p>You’ve got that completely backwards. :)</p>

        • Cosmocronos

          14 April, 2022 - 3:35 pm

          <p>Not at all…</p>

          • bbennett40

            15 April, 2022 - 9:08 am

            <p>Yes at all. 100% backwards. :)</p>

  • bschnatt

    14 April, 2022 - 9:21 am

    <p>This would be Donald Trump all over again. Unless he fires almost all of Twitter’s IT staff, they’re gonna sabotage him any chance they get. Good luck running Twitter with a skeleton crew!</p><p><br></p><p>And good luck to a newly private, free-speech loving Twitter when Apple and Google decide to yank their app. They’ll be in the same boat as Gab (not that that was a death blow). Not a smart decision on Musk’s part. Wasted money IMHO, but it’s his to spend…</p>

    • lvthunder

      Premium Member
      14 April, 2022 - 11:38 am

      <p>They allow messages, email, and phone calls. All of which allow free speech.</p>

  • stephenf

    14 April, 2022 - 9:37 am

    <p>What is Twitter?</p>

    • Donte

      14 April, 2022 - 4:00 pm

      <p>The sewer of the Internet </p>

  • dallasnorth40

    Premium Member
    14 April, 2022 - 9:46 am

    <p>As a Tesla investor, I am not happy about this. I would rather he focus more on the push toward a sustainable future. I’m OK with the SpaceX distraction, but this seems unnecessary.</p>

    • mikegalos

      14 April, 2022 - 1:19 pm

      <p>Why? This is Musk spending his money not Tesla’s money. It isn’t as though SpaceX is a division of Tesla Motors. Nor are Musk’s other companies. As a shareholder do you really think you should get a say in how other shareholders spend their own money?</p><p><br></p>

      • mattbg

        Premium Member
        14 April, 2022 - 2:59 pm

        <p>Presumably he would have to liquidate more Tesla stock to free up the cash to buy Twitter.</p><p><br></p><p>Whether through new share issues or social media stunts, he keeps coming up with new ways to divest from Tesla without making it look like he’s divesting from Tesla for "no reason". And yet, the price keeps going up. That should be concerning to Tesla shareholders.</p><p><br></p>

        • nicholas_kathrein

          15 April, 2022 - 2:14 pm

          <p>No it shouldn’t. If you know Tesla’s TAM for everything they currently sell and things in the future they will be able to sell you know that Tesla is setup to make tons of $$$ that the established car companies will be lucky to stay in business. Go do some research on good ole VW. They have so much out standing debt they’ll be lucky not to have to file bankruptcy around 2030 or so. See Tesla only is building new state of the art factories and it saddled with one legacy factory which is really inefficient. That will cost them a lot of money as well as at some point the ice engine cars will have a tipping point where they’ll lose money on everyone sold. Basically because the scale isn’t there any longer and everything involved in producing the cars from special engine factories they own to old car factories they are saddled with upgrading or closing down that are laid out in an efficient way to produce the new battery electric vehicles. Just look up Sandy Munro in Google to find his youtube channel. He explains why Tesla new factories are so far ahead of everyone else. </p>

          • lvthunder

            Premium Member
            15 April, 2022 - 2:31 pm

            <p>A new factory is always better than an old one unless you’re dumb.</p>

      • lvthunder

        Premium Member
        14 April, 2022 - 5:00 pm

        <p>Exactly. Or his time. Shareholders shouldn’t get to decide that either.</p>

    • red.radar

      Premium Member
      14 April, 2022 - 8:58 pm

      <p>Social media is key to the Marketing of Tesla. If Elon buys Twitter it secures a platform to promote Tesla/Space X in the manner he sees best fit. Considering Tesla has never spent a dollar on Marketing, this could be a move to protect that strategy. </p><p><br></p><p>Or its Elon being Elon…</p>

  • wright_is

    Premium Member
    14 April, 2022 - 10:20 am

    <p>There goes the neighbourhood…</p>

  • seattlemike

    Premium Member
    14 April, 2022 - 10:34 am

    <p>This is fantastic news! This could change everything! :)</p>

  • MTrimmer

    Premium Member
    14 April, 2022 - 10:57 am

    <p>Looks like a "pump and dump" scheme to me. Buy 9.2% of company stock. Make a non-binding offer at to drive stock price up. Announce deal can’t be completed due to unspecified terms and sell stock at a big profit.</p>

    • Cavorter

      Premium Member
      14 April, 2022 - 11:33 am

      <p>Glad I wasn’t the only one thinking that was the likely play.</p>

    • jecouch66

      Premium Member
      14 April, 2022 - 1:54 pm

      <p>I think it’s more an ego trip purchase myself (and I like Elon Musk), but this certainly sound plausible as well.</p>

    • nicholas_kathrein

      15 April, 2022 - 2:00 pm

      <p>It maybe hard to believe but Elon doesn’t care about money. He’s almost lost it all and more many times. If he acquires Twitter he doesn’t care if it makes money. Making money is why issues happen in the first place. Advertisers don’t want to be on posts with anything controversial. So to maximise money social networks limit what people can say so they can put ads on to most posts possible. If you think as Elon does that it’s better to hear everyone good or bad so everyone at least knows what people are thinking then in some rare instances maybe people can agree to disagree but know where people are coming from. That doesn’t mean they’ll let people threaten people.</p>

      • jgraebner

        Premium Member
        15 April, 2022 - 2:11 pm

        <p>Yes, it is extremely hard to believe that the rather ruthless billionaire doesn’t care about money. It also is almost certainly untrue. </p>

  • lvthunder

    Premium Member
    14 April, 2022 - 11:36 am

    <p>If Twitter rejects his offer and I think he will he should just give his shares to Donald Trump just to drive the progressives crazy.</p>

  • egab

    14 April, 2022 - 1:01 pm

    <p>The obsession of the media with Musk is reaching the annoying levels of the obsession with Steve Jobs. Both are/were entitled pricks. The more you write about them, the more power they get. Don’t contribute to that. Yes, the iPhone is [was] a solid product, and Tesla is a nice car, but smarter people made these happen.</p>

  • christianwilson

    Premium Member
    14 April, 2022 - 2:47 pm

    <p>So, we are talking about someone who wants to make Twitter better by buying it and that same person uses Twitter to troll people?</p><p><br></p><p>Alrighty, then. </p>

  • dietzeld

    14 April, 2022 - 2:51 pm

    <p><br></p>

  • dietzeld

    14 April, 2022 - 2:55 pm

    <p>Suspicious classic pump and dump, and media attention for the narcissist. Super wealthy folks can do this stuff as entertainment. He’ll make money no matter how this all plays out, and that’s all that matters. I doubt very much that he truly gives a hoot about free speech.</p>

  • jonsimon

    Premium Member
    14 April, 2022 - 3:43 pm

    <p>He should buy Bing while he’s at it</p>

    • miamimauler

      14 April, 2022 - 8:04 pm

      <p>@jonsimon</p><p><br></p><p>Why?</p>

  • BizTechSherpa

    14 April, 2022 - 4:20 pm

    <p>Paul, always the professional journalist: "…<span style="color: rgb(0, 0, 0);">the notorious troll…</span>"</p>

    • lvthunder

      Premium Member
      14 April, 2022 - 5:02 pm

      <p>Except Paul didn’t write this one.</p>

  • cseafous

    Premium Member
    14 April, 2022 - 5:52 pm

    <p>The first amendment applies to the US government, not corporations. While other countries may also have similar restrictions upon themselves, there is no country that extends that limitation to companies. At some point governments will still control what can and can’t be said on Twitter even if he removes all internal standards. If terrorists are openly using the site to recruit or people start threating physical violence against other people, the government is going to shut all of that down whether Twitter allows it or not.</p><p><br></p><p>Not to mention the legal liability that he could be opening Twitter up to by allowing these things to occur. </p><p><br></p><p>I just don’t see how this is going to work out the way he wants it to.</p>

    • lvthunder

      Premium Member
      15 April, 2022 - 2:27 pm

      <p>You don’t know the way he wants it to work though. Maybe he wants everyone verified so if there is any illegal speech those people can be arrested or sued. Just like in the actual public square.</p>

  • jwpear

    Premium Member
    15 April, 2022 - 10:33 am

    <p>Imagine how many educations $43 billion could help fund.</p>

    • nicholas_kathrein

      15 April, 2022 - 2:20 pm

      <p>You can say that about anything. Look all the money the US spent on wars around the world. How much we spend on the defense budget. Look at the wasted money Russia is spending on their war now and how that money should instead be spent on their people. This is why the biggest / most powerful war wise countries can’t afford social programs. A lot of money is wasted on defense programs. If we could have no war and no fear of war countries could invest in their people and not military equipment and weapons. </p>

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