Musk offers to buy Twitter for $43B
In just 10 days, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has gone from popular Twitter contributor to the company’s largest individual shareholder to a would-be owner of the social platform — a whirlwind of activity that could change the service dramatically given Musk’s selfidentification as a free speech absolutist.
Twitter revealed in a securities filing Thursday that the sometimes whimsical billionaire has offered to buy the company outright for more than $43 billion, saying the social media platform “needs to be transformed as a private company” in order to build trust with its users.
“This is not a sort of way to make money,” Musk said during an onstage interview at the TED 2022 conference Thursday. “Having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization.”
Like other platforms, Twitter over the past several years has established restrictions on tweets that threaten violence, incite hatred, bully others and spread misinformation. Such rules played a key role in Twitter’s decision to ban former President Donald Trump following the 2021 Capitol insurrection of Jan. 6.
Musk detailed some specific potential changes Thursday — like favoring temporary rather than permanent bans — but has mostly described his aim in broad and abstract terms.
While Twitter’s user base remains much smaller than those of rivals such as Facebook and TikTok, the service is popular with celebrities, world leaders, journalists and intellectuals. Musk himself has more than 81 million followers.
Twitter shares were changing hands at $44.98 in afternoon trading, down about 2% and well below Musk’s offer of $54.20 per share. That’s generally a sign that some investors doubt the deal will go through. The stock is still down from its 52-week high of about $73.
Musk called that price his best and final offer, although he provided no details on financing.
“I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said in the filing. “I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.”
Twitter said it will decide whether accepting the offer is in the best interests of shareholders.
Should Musk choose to go through with his takeover attempt, he likely could raise the roughly $43 billion he needs to do it, possibly by borrowing billions using his stakes in Tesla and SpaceX as collateral.
Data provider FactSet says Musk owns 172.6 million shares of Tesla worth $176.47 billion.
At the TED conference, Musk said he has the money to buy the social media platform. “I could technically afford it,” he said, to laughs in the audience.