Elon Musk has made an offer of $54.20 per share in cash, representing a 54% premium over the Jan 28. closing price and a worth of about $43 billion to acquire Twitter Inc..
The social media company’s shares soared 18%.
Musk, 50, introduced the offer in a submitting with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.
Musk can afford a takeover of Twitter. He’s currently worth about $260 billion in accordance to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, in contrast with Twitter’s market valuation of about $37 billion.
In a letter to Twitter’s board, Musk said he believes Twitter “will neither thrive nor serve [its free speech] societal crucial in its present form. Twitter must be transformed as a private company”
The takeover is unlikely to be a drawn out process. “If the deal doesn’t work, given that I don’t have confidence in administration nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change within the general public market, I would want to rethink my place as a shareholder,” said Musk.