After initially purchasing a 9.2% stake and becoming Twitter’s largest shareholder, Elon Musk has made an offer to buy 100% of the shares and take the company private.
In a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Musk offered to purchase Twitter for $54.20 per share, a sizeable premium over what the social media company is currently trading at.
The offer would be worth about $43 billion.
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.
In his unsolicited offer, Musk says that he believes in the potential of the social media platform, but after his purchase he realized the changes he wanted to see could not be made unless it was private.
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.
Musk said that this was his best and final offer, adding that if it is not accepted he will have to reconsider his current position as the company’s largest shareholder.
It has been a turbulent 10 days since Musk announced his purchase of 73.5 million shares on April 4.
Twitter CEO Parag Agarwal announced one day later Musk would be taking a seat on the company’s board of directors. There were a number of conditions with his appointment, with one being that he could not purchase more than 14.2% of the company’s shares.
Just a few days later it was revealed he was no longer taking that seat on the board, opening up the possibility that Musk was going to try and purchase more shares and even take the company private.
Share prices of TWTR have remained relatively stable since the offer was announced, currently up about 2% in early morning trading.
