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Musk launches Twitter takeover bid

April 14, 2022

By Colin Mann

Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter, suggesting in a US Securities and Exchange Commission filing that he is the right person to “unlock” the social media platform’s “extraordinary potential”.

Musk says he would pay $54.20 (€50) a share for Twitter, valuing it at over $40 billion, but that if his offer was not accepted, he would need to reconsider his position as a shareholder.

His offer price represents a 38 per cent premium to the closing price of Twitter’s stock on April 1st, the last trading day before Musk publicly revealed his 9.2 per cent stake in the company

Musk announced his bid in a tweet, saying: “I made an offer”, witth a hyperlink to the filing.

In his filing, Musk said he had invested in Twitter as he  believes in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, “and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy. However, 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.”

“Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it,” he declared.

In response, Twitter said its board would “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”.

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