Elon Musk mulling offer to buy Twitter from shareholders for $46.5B

Elon Musk is considering a tender offer to buy Twitter, and has secured $46.5 billion in financing commitments to help finance the potential purchase.

In an updated filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday, Musk said he is now exploring an offer to purchase some or all Twitter shares directly from shareholders, given the lack of response from Twitter's board of directors.

The filing adds that Musk has received commitments worth $46.5 billion to finance the deal, but has not yet determined whether he will make an offer or take additional steps toward one.

Earlier in April, Musk made a bid to buy Twitter outright for $41 billion. That came after the outspoken billionaire became Twitter's largest individual shareholder and was offered a spot on the company's board of directors.

In efforts to fend off a potentially hostile takeover, Twitter has implemented a "poison pill" plan that would give shareholders the ability to purchase more shares at a discount if any person or entity acquires beneficial ownership of at least 15% of Twitter's outstanding common stock.

Musk has criticized Twitter's content moderation policies, and has hinted that he would steer the company toward a hands-off approach to moderation if he purchased the social media platform.

32 Comments

rotateleftbyte 1630 comments · 12 Years

About 2 years ago

He's got to find something to spend his $23B salary from Tesla on, hasn't he? (sic)
I'm not and have never have been a Twitter user but personally, I hope he fails miserably.
IMHO, he has more than enough on his plate with Tesla, Space X, The boring company, and his brain implants/android.

zeus423 270 comments · 19 Years

I guess we can finally put a price on "free speech."

sbdude 290 comments · 5 Years

rotateleftbyte said:

He's got to find something to spend his $23B salary from Tesla on, hasn't he? (sic)
I'm not and have never have been a Twitter user but personally, I hope he fails miserably.
IMHO, he has more than enough on his plate with Tesla, Space X, The boring company, and his brain implants/android.

Glad you hope he fails miserably, especially when you have no horse in the race. Also, if you think he single-handedly runs every company he's involved in, you're just as delusional as Twitter's board.

macinscott 48 comments · 14 Years

@rotateleftbyte, why do you "hope he fails miserably"? Because he's an advocate for free speech? Because he doesn't agree with the arbitrary and biased way Twitter (and other social media companies) censor the opinions of those often on the other side of the political spectrum?

I get it. Musk's personality can be off-putting. But should social media companies, which are the primary source for news for the majority of the population, be able to decide which views are allowed to be expressed, and which ones aren't? Should they be able to make stories disappear (Hunter Biden's laptop) if they deem it to be detrimental to their cause? And should there be no repercussions when posts flagged as fake news actually turn out to be true, while what has been pushed as the narrative is actually false?

Americans should be extremely concerned when the actions of Big Tech and our own government begin to mirror those of totalitarian regimes. And that is exactly what has been happening. I'll take free speech any day over controlled speech. I want opinions challenged. I want public discourse and debate. I want to hear all sides and draw my own conclusions. Don't you?

h4y3s 85 comments · 9 Years

Thank you @macinscott