The chief executive officer of Tesla Elon Musk has launched a hostile takeover of social media giant Twitter, making his “best and final” offer of $43 billion to buy Twitter Inc, Bloomberg reported.
He is willing to pay $54.20 per share in cash, representing a 54 percent premium over the 28 January closing price, saying that the company has extraordinary potential that he will unlock.
New York Stock Exchange-listed Twitter, whose market valuation is worth approximately $37 billion, saw its shared soar by 18 percent following the announcement. Musk is worth about $260 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index.
The CEO of Tesla announced the offer in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The billionaire first disclosed a stake of approximately 9 percent on April 4.
The company offered him a seat on the board following the announcement of his stake, which made him the largest individual shareholder. However, Elon Musk declined the offer.
Elon Musk is one of Twitter’s most-watched firebrands, often tweeting out memes and taunts to more than 80 million followers on his official handle @elonmusk.
He has been outspoken about changes he’d like to consider imposing at the social media platform.
After his stake became public, he immediately began appealing to fellow users about prospective moves, from turning Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter and adding an edit button for tweets to granting automatic verification marks to premium users, Bloomberg reported.
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