Elon Musk has made an offer to purchase social media site Twitter, days after he became the largest shareholder in the company, the Financial Times has reported.
The Tesla CEO has reportedly offered $54.20 after acquiring a 9% stake in the company however renegading on his decision to join the company board.
Musk announced the offer on Thursday in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. The filing said the $54.20 a share offer was a 38% premium to the share price on April 1, just a day before his share purchases became public.
If the offer is accepted, it would make the entrepreneur the latest social media baron, meanwhile giving him a voice in the future of the platform where he has 80 million followers.
In a letter to the company’s board, attached to the filing, Musk said he had invested in the platform, of which he is an enthusiastic user, because he believed in its potential to be “the platform for free speech around the globe.”
Despite his investment, he has admitted that the company would “neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form,” and writing that “Twitter needs to be reformed 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. Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it,” he wrote in the letter.
Twitter’s share price rose climbed over 27% off the back of the news of Musk becoming the company’s largest shareholder.
