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Musk's price of $54.20 per share, which was disclosed in a
regulatory filing on Thursday, represents a 38% premium to
Twitter's April 1 close, the last trading day before Tesla CEO's
more than 9% stake in the company was made public.
The billionaire rejected an offer to join Twitter's board
earlier this week after disclosing his stake in the company, a
move which analysts said signaled his intention to take over the
company as a board seat would have limited his stake to just
under 15%.
"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,"
Musk said in a letter to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor.
Musk, who calls himself a free-speech absolutist, has been
critical of the social media platform and its policies, and
recently ran a poll on Twitter asking users if they believed the
platform adheres to the principle of free speech.
"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
added.
Twitter will review Musk's offer with advice from Goldman Sachs
& Co and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati, a source told
Reuters.
The company's shares jumped 12% in premarket trading, while
those of Tesla fell about 1%. The total deal value was
calculated based on 763.58 million shares outstanding, according
to Refinitiv data.
Musk has amassed over 80 million followers since joining the
site in 2009 and has used the platform to make several
announcements, including teasing a go-private deal for Tesla
that landed him in hot water with regulators.
He has also been sued by former Twitter shareholders who claim
they missed out on the recent run-up in its stock price because
he waited too long to disclose his stake.
Twitter's lower-than-expected user additions in recent months
have raised doubts about its growth prospects, even as it
pursues big projects such as audio chat rooms and newsletters to
end long-running stagnation.
"It would be hard for any other bidders/consortium to emerge and
the Twitter board will be forced likely to accept this bid
and/or run an active process to sell Twitter," Wedbush
Securities analyst Daniel Ives wrote in a client note.
"There will be host of questions around financing, regulatory,
balancing Musk's time (Tesla, SpaceX) in the coming days but
ultimately based on this filing it is a now or never bid for
Twitter to accept," Ives said.
Musk said Morgan Stanley was the financial adviser for the
offer.
"Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it," Musk
said in his letter.
(Reporting by Chavi Mehta, Uday Sampath and Greg Romeliotis;
Editing by Anil D'Silva)
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