BREAKING: Elon Musk Offers to Purchase Twitter in Cash

Elon Musk is making a play to purchase the social media platform outright, according to a Thursday morning report from Bloomberg News.

The richest person in the world recently purchased 9% of the social media giant’s shares and nearly joined the board of directors, but ultimately decided not to.

But now it appears that, according to a Schedule 13D filing obtained by Bloomberg, Musk is offering to buy Twitter outright, at $54.20 per share. As of posting, Twitter is currently trading at roughly $45 per share. Bloomberg reports:

Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, according to an updated 13D filing, Bloomberg News reports.

Musk offered to “acquire all of the outstanding Common Stock of the Issuer not owned by the Reporting Person for all cash consideration valuing the Common Stock at $54.20 per share.”

At $54.20 per share,  Musk is launching a roughly $46 billion takeover of Twitter.  According to recent reports, Musk is currently worth over $25o billion dollars, which if correct, makes him roughly $100 billion richer than the second wealthiest individual, Jeff Bezos.

Musk confirmed the report on Twitter by saying “I made an offer” with a link to the Schedule 13D.

The Schedule 13D includes the following text to Twitter Chairman of the Board Bret Taylor:

As I indicated this weekend, I believe that the company should be private to go through the changes that need to be made.

After the past several days of thinking this over, I have decided I want to acquire the company and take it private.

I am going to send you an offer letter tonight, it will be public in the morning.

Are you available to chat?

[VOICE SCRIPT]
1. Best and Final:
a. I am not playing the back-and-forth game.
b. I have moved straight to the end.
c. It’s a high price and your shareholders will love it.
d. 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.
i. This is not a threat, it’s simply not a good investment without the changes that need to be made.
ii. And those changes won’t happen without taking the company private.

2. My advisors and my team are available after you get the letter to answer any questions
a. There will be more detail in our public filings. After you receive the letter and review the public filings, your team can call my family office with any questions.

When an individual or group acquires more than 5% of a voting class of a company’s equity shares a Schedule 13D must be filed within 10 days of the filer reaching a 5% stake. Schedule 13D is also known as a “beneficial ownership report.”

Musk has been an ardent supporter of free speech and a frequent critic of Twitter’s policies that have caused numerous controversies and allegations of censorship, particularly in conservative circles.

News of Musk’s effort to purchase Twitter led to a 12% rise in its stock price in pre-market trading.