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Elon Musk launches hostile takeover of Twitter for $41 billion – Moneycontrol

Elon Musk

Billionaire Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for $41.39 billion, a regulatory filing revealed on April 14. He has offered to buy Twitter for $54.20/share in cash.

The 50-year-old tycoon announced the offer in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.

Musk’s offer price of $54.20 per share represents a 38 percent premium to the closing price of Twitter’s stock on April 1, the last trading day before the Tesla CEO’s over nine percent investment in the company was publicly announced on April 4.

Elon Musk has made a “best and final” offer to buy Twitter Inc., saying the company has extraordinary potential and he will unlock it. The world’s richest man will pay $54.20 per share in cash, representing a 54 percent premium over the January 28 closing price and a value of about $41 billion.

After launching the hostile takeover, the Tesla boss said on April 14: “Twitter has extraordinary potential, I will unlock it.”

Musk said he believes Twitter “will neither thrive nor serve societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company”

“If the deal doesn’t work, given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.”

The microblogging platform responded saying: “Twitter Confirms Receipt of Unsolicited, Non-Binding Proposal from Elon Musk. Twitter Inc has confirmed it has received an unsolicited, non-binding proposal from Elon Musk to acquire all of the Company’s outstanding common stock for $54.20 per share in cash. 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 Twitter stockholders.”

Elon Musk is one of Twitter’s most-watched firebrands and has been outspoken about changes he would like to consider imposing on the social media platform. The company offered him a seat on the board following the announcement of his stake, which made him the largest individual shareholder.

After his stake became public, Musk immediately began appealing to fellow users about prospective moves, from turning Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter and adding an edit button for tweets to granting automatic verification marks to premium users. One tweet suggested Twitter might be dying, given that several celebrities with high numbers of followers rarely tweet.

(With Bloomberg inputs)

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