BREAKING | Elon Musk in $43-billion hostile bid for Twitter

Elon Musk has made a “best and final” offer to buy Twitter, saying the company has extraordinary potential and he will unlock it.

The world’s richest man will pay US$54.20/share in cash, representing a 54% premium over the 28 January closing price and a value of about $43-billion. The social media company’s shares soared 18%.

Musk, 50, announced the offer in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The billionaire, who also controls Tesla, first disclosed a stake of about 9% on 4 April.

The executive is one of Twitter’s most-watched firebrands, often tweeting out memes and taunts to @elonmusk’s more than 80 million followers. He has been outspoken about changes he’d 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.

After his stake became public, Musk 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. One tweet suggested Twitter might be dying, given that several celebrities with high numbers of followers rarely tweet.

Musk can afford it. He’s currently worth about $260-billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, compared with Twitter’s market valuation of about $37-billion.  — (c) Maxwell Adler, (c) 2022 Bloomberg LP