Elon Musk proposed to buy 100% of Twitter for USD 41 billion and withdraw the company from the stock market

Elon Musk has offered to buy 100% of Twitter, just days after Tesla’s CEO said he would step down from the social media company’s board of directors.

Twitter reported in a regulatory filing Thursday that Musk, who currently owns just over 9% of its shares and is the company’s largest shareholder, provided a letter to the company on Wednesday containing a proposal to buy the remaining shares of Twitter that he does not already own..

Musk offered $54.20 per share of Twitter, for a total of 41 billion in cash.

At that price, it represents a 38% premium over Twitter’s close on April 1, the last day of trading before the Tesla CEO’s more than 9% stake in the company was made public. The total value of the operation has been calculated based on 763.58 million shares outstanding, according to Refinitiv data.

“I have invested in Twitter because I believe in its potential to be the platform for freedom of expression around the world, and I believe that freedom of expression is a social imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk says in the presentation. “Nevertheless, I have realized since making my investment that the company will not thrive and serve this social imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to transform itself as a private company”.

Musk specified that it is “his best offer and his last offer”, and threatened, in case of rejection, to “reexamine his position as a shareholder” within the social network.

Twitter shares soared nearly 12% before the market opened.

“Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it,” Musk said in the document.

Musk’s move comes after he asked on Twitter on Saturday whether the social network was “dying” and called out users like singer Justin Bieber, who are widely followed but rarely post. “Most of these ‘top’ accounts rarely tweet and post very little content,” the Tesla boss wrote, captioning a list of the 10 profiles with the most followers – including himself at number eight, with 81 million. of followers-

“Is Twitter dying?” he asked.

In other tweets over the weekend, Musk jokingly posted polls on whether to drop the “w” from Twitter’s name and on turning its San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter “since no one shows up anyway.” .

He also suggested removing ads, Twitter’s main source of revenue.

Early Thursday, the businessman had not spoken on his Twitter account.

The billionaire, who currently owns almost 73.5 million shares of the messaging company, had become a critic of the social network and had questioned whether its rules adhered “rigorously” to the principle of freedom of expression. expression.

These criticisms had aroused misgivings in some sectors, even among Twitter employees themselves, who were concerned that Musk would wield excessive power in the company to change its ethical standards for publishingincluding the suspension of the account of former US President Donald Trump, sanctioned for considering that his messages instigated the assault on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Musk has amassed more than 80 million followers since joining the website in 2009 and has used the platform to make several announcements, including announcing a Tesla privatization deal that landed him in hot water with regulators.

(With information from AP, AFP, EFE)

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