Billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter in a deal valuing the social media company at $43 billion.
“Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company,” Musk said in a filing Thursday with the Securities and Exchange Commission. “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”
Musk is one of Twitter’s power users with more than 80 million followers on the social media platform. He’s also been one of the company’s biggest critics.
In a letter accompanying his offer, Musk a self-described “free speech absolutist,” hinted he would return Twitter to its roots as “the free speech wing of the free speech party.”
“I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” he wrote.
Twitter said its board of directors would review the proposal.
Twitter’s board of directors moved to block Elon Musk’s $43 billion hostile takeover bid Friday.
Called a “poison pill” or rights plan, the measure allows existing shareholders to buy more shares and dilute Musk’s ownership in Twitter, making it difficult for Musk to build a stake greater than 15%.
“The Rights Plan will reduce the likelihood that any entity, person or group gains control of Twitter through open market accumulation without paying all shareholders an appropriate control premium or without providing the Board sufficient time to make informed judgments and take actions that are in the best interests of shareholders,” Twitter said in a statement.
Musk disclosed a 9.2% stake in Twitter earlier this month. He was offered a seat on the board of directors but declined and made an unsolicited bid to buy the company for $54.20 a share.
He did not say how he planned to finance the purchase.
The company said the poison pill “does not prevent the Board from engaging with parties or accepting an acquisition proposal if the Board believes that it is in the best interests of Twitter and its shareholders.”
