Elon Musk has made a “best and final” offer to buy Twitter Inc., saying the company has extraordinary potential and he is the person to unlock it.
The Tesla Inc. CEO and the world’s richest person will offer $54.20 per share in cash, representing a 54 percent premium over the Jan. 28 closing price and a value of about $43 billion. The social media company’s shares fell 1.7 percent to close at $45.08 on Thurday.
Musk, 50, announced the offer in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, after turning down a potential board seat at the company. The billionaire first disclosed a stake of about 9 percent on April 4. Tesla shares fell 3.7 percent to close at $985 on Thursday.
Twitter, in a statement, "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."
There were later reports that the Twitter board was considering implementing a poison pill action to ward off Musk's bid.