Tesla CEO Elon Musk on Thursday shared in a filing that he was offering to buy social media giant Twitter for $54.20 per share, arguing that the platform needs to be transformed privately, gets brutally rejected, but fires back at Saudi Prince.
The offer came after a week when the SpaceX CEO revealed that he has a 9.1% stake in the company and now puts the company's total value at $43 billion. In a letter addressed to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor, Musk said that he chose to invest in Twitter because of its potential to be the "platform for free speech around the globe."
Elon Musk Offers To Buy Twitter
Musk added that he believes that free speech is a societal imperative for a properly functioning democracy. After the billionaire's announcement, Twitter shares closed down 1.68% on Thursday while Tesla's stock dipped more than 3.6% on the news, as per CNBC.
The entrepreneur said that the social media company had to go private because it is not able to either "thrive nor serve" free speech in its current state. This is the reason Musk made his offer to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share. He argued that the price was a 54% premium over the day before he started investing in the company and a 38% premium over the day before his investment was made public knowledge.
Musk said that he was planning on making the social media platform "maximally trusted" and "broadly inclusive" as they are important factors to the future of civilization. On Thursday, the entrepreneur shared some specific potential changes he would bring to the company, including temporary rather than permanent bans but made mostly broad and abstract recommendations.
According to the Associated Press, the Tesla CEO said in his statement that he wanted to open up the "black box" of artificial intelligence technology that was driving Twitter's feed. He reasoned that this was so people would have more transparency about why some of their tweets were going viral and others were simply disappearing.
Rejecting the Tesla CEO's Offer
However, Twitter's investors seemed underwhelmed by Musk's bid and showed potential concerns as to how he would finance the company. Despite most companies' shares going up over possible takeovers, the social media giant's went down.
Furthermore, Prince Al Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who described himself as one of the company's largest and most long-term shareholders, said that Twitter should reject Musk's offer. He said that the price was not high enough to reflect the "intrinsic value" of the company.
FactSet noted that Twitter's other top shareholders include the Vanguard Group, which is the largest shareholder with a 10.3% stake, the Morgan Stanley Investment Management with an 8% stake, and BlackRock Fund Advisors with a 4.6% stake, the New York Times reported.
On the other hand, Musk fired back at the Saudi Prince by asking how much of the company the Kingdom owned, both directly and indirectly. Furthermore, the entrepreneur asked the Kingdom what its stance was on journalistic freedom of speech
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