Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter, says the company ‘needs to be transformed’

Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter.

One of the richest men in the world sent a letter to the company with a proposal to buy back all of Twitter’s outstanding shares for $54.20 per share, according to the company. filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission fifth publication.

The letter, sent Wednesday, looks like an offer to keep Twitter private, a move that would give Musk more control over the company. This offer values ​​Twitter at more than $40 billion.

“I invested in Twitter because I believe in its potential to be a platform for free speech globally, and I believe that free speech is a social imperative for a functioning democracy. action,” Musk wrote in a letter to Bret Taylor, Twitter’s chairman of the board. of directors, that was included in the SEC filings.

Musk confirmed the offer on Twitter.

Twitter stock price rallied in pre-market trading Thursday morning, up about 11% to about $50 per share.

Twitter said in a press release that it would review Musk’s bid.

“The Twitter Board of Directors will carefully review the proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the Company and all of Twitter’s shareholders,” the company said.

The move comes after Musk First time buying a large stake in Twitter in mid-March and then agreed to join the board of directors, a move quickly reverse in a few days.

Musk has criticized Twitter’s handling of its platform, most notably the way it regulates what people are allowed to say on its service. Twitter has in recent years cracked about disinformation, calls for violence, harassment and conspiracy theories. Those moves have been criticized by many Republican politicians and conservative commentators, especially after Twitter. President Donald Trump was banned at that time in January 2021.

“However, since making my investment, I have realized that the company will neither thrive nor serve social imperatives in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed into a company. privately,” Musk added in the letter.

He said his offer was to buy Twitter in its entirety.

“Therefore, I offer to buy 100% Twitter for $54.20 per share with cash, 54% premium from a day before I started investing in Twitter and 38% premium in the day before my investment goes public. Musk wrote. “My offer is my best and last offer and if it is not accepted, I will need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.”

“Twitter has extraordinary potential,” he added. “I’ll unlock it.”

Musk, co-founder and CEO of Tesla and founder and CEO of SpaceX, is worth about $259 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.

The suggested price – $54.20 – appears to be related to Musk’s signature internet humor, playing on “420,” a number related to marijuana use that he joked about before.

Daniel Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities, an investment and wealth management firm, speaking on CNBC that there is little chance that Twitter could decline the offer.

“This puts Twitter against the wall… there’s really no way that Twitter in my opinion can deny this,” he said.

Twitter’s moderation efforts have led to several attempts to create new platforms with fewer rules, although platforms like Gab and Parler already have difficult to achieve traction. Trump’s own social media effort, Truth Social, also struggled.

Meanwhile, Twitter remains one of the biggest social media platforms but has its own set of challenges. In its most recent quarterly earnings report, Twitter does not meet the expectations of the business world to grow users and ad revenue. Twitter currently has about 217 million daily active users.

This is an evolving story. Please check back for updates.

at Blogtuan.info – Source: nbcnews.com – Read the original article here