Elon Musk has offered to buy all of Twitter for $40bn (£30.5bn), weeks after taking a stake in the platform, promising to make it a “platform for freedom of expression”.
The billionaire Tesla chief wants to privatize the limited liability social media giant.
His announcement came after he bought just under 10% of Twitter, making him its largest shareholder. Shortly after, he was offered a seat on the board and at first accepted – but then announced that he would ultimately not join.
Now he said the company “should be private to go through the changes that need to be made” in filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
“I invested in Twitter because I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech worldwide, and I believe that free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy” , he wrote.
“However, since making my investment, I now realize that the business will not thrive or serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed into a private enterprise.
Mr Musk has suggested he could sell all of his shares if the offer is not accepted.
“I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium to the day before my investment in Twitter and a 38% premium to the day before the announcement public of my investment,” Mr. Read said in Musk’s SEC filings.
“My offer is my best and last offer and if it is not accepted, I will have to reconsider my position as a shareholder.
“Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.
In separate documents, Mr Musk revealed the script he had sent to Twitter management. He said he had thought about the situation over the “last few days” and decided he wanted to buy the business.
He wouldn’t “play the back-and-forth game” and would “skip straight to the end,” he told Twitter executives. “It’s a high price and your shareholders will love it.”
He then told the company that if the deal didn’t go ahead, “given that I don’t have confidence in management and don’t believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market” , he might seek to sell his shares.
“It’s not a threat, it’s just not a good investment without the changes that need to be made,” he said. “And those changes won’t happen without privatizing the company.”
He gave no indication of what those planned changes might be, beyond his comments on “free speech.”
Twitter also confirmed it had received the offer and said it would now consider it.
“Twitter’s Board of Directors will carefully consider the proposal to determine a course of action that it believes is in the best interests of the company and all Twitter shareholders,” the social media site said in a statement. .
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Source: www.independent.co.uk
This notice was published: 2022-04-14 19:04:02
