Twitter Reacts To Elon Musk’s Offer To Buy Company For $41bn

Twitter has reacted to Elon Musk’s offer to outrightly buy the company for $41 billion.

In a statement, the company said it received the offer from Musk and its board of directors would review the proposal and decide the best course of action.

“Twitter, Inc today 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,” it said in the release.

Musk’s offer to buy Twitter entirely was disclosed in a regulatory filing by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Thursday.

“Since making my investment 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.

“My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” Musk said in a letter to Twitter Chairman, Bret Taylor.

Musk became the largest shareholder in Twitter after acquiring a 9.2% stake in the company. Following that, Twitter CEO, Parag Agrawal, revealed that Musk would be joining the board of Twitter as a member, to which Musk replied that he was looking forward to it.

Musk, who is currently the richest person in the world, later made a U-Turn and rejected the offer to join the board. The move meant that he could buy as many shares in the company as he wanted, because he would not be subject to an agreement that Twitter has with its board members that limit them to owning a maximum of 14.9% stake in the company.

Afterward, Musk was sued by former Twitter shareholders who claim that they missed out on the jump in its stock price because he delayed in revealing that he had acquired a large stake in the microblogging platform.

The shareholders filed a proposed class action in Manhattan federal court, New York, where they said Musk made “materially false and misleading statements and omissions” by not revealing he had invested in Twitter by March 24 as federal law requires.

Following Musk’s disclosure of how much Twitter stake he purchased, its shares rose from $39.31 to $49.97 which investors saw as a vote of confidence from him.