Elon Musk offers $43B for Twitter

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 self-identification 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 has more than 81 million followers, rivaling pop stars such as Lady Gaga.