Elon Musk doesn’t just want a Twitter account; he wants all of Twitter.
The Tesla CEO currently owns more than 9% of the social media platform’s stock but wants to buy all of it, offering $54.20 a share, The Associated Press reported.
It would cost Musk about $43.39 billion when taking the more than 800 million shares outstanding, according to Barron’s and multiplying that number by the $54.20 offer.
Twitter confirmed receipt of the offer, according to PR Newswire.
Musk said he wants to make Twitter a private company, CNBC reported.
He called the proposal his best and final offer, but he didn’t say how he would be paying for it.
Musk also said that if the offer wasn’t accepted he would “need to reconsider my position as a shareholder,” CNBC reported.
“I invested in Twitter as I believe 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,” Musk said. “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.”
Musk has been buying shares almost every day since Jan. 31, he said in recent regulatory filings, the AP reported.
He has recently spoken out about how he believes Twitter falls short on free speech when it bars users for violating content standards on violence, hate or harmful misinformation.
Musk calls himself a “free speech absolutist.”
“I invested in Twitter as I believe 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,” Musk wrote to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor, CNBC reported.
The proposal was submitted days after he said he would not be joining the company’s board of directors after he was invited.
When he announced his decision he tweeted, then later deleted, his stance on how Twitter is missing the mark, and how he would change the platform, for instance dropping ads and making the company’s San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter, the AP reported.
Musk has more than 81 million Twitter followers.
Here are some memorable photos of SpaceX founder and CEO Elon Musk through the years.
2008: Tesla founder Elon Musk attends the launch party for the Tesla Roadster, the world’s first highway-capable all electric car available in the United States, at the Tesla Flagship Store on May 1, 2008, in Los Angeles.
2009: CEO Elon Musk (left) arrives at the Tesla UK launch on June 25, 2009, in London.
2010: Toyota CEO Akio Toyoda, Tesla Motors CEO Elon Musk and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger laugh during a news conference at Tesla Motors headquarters May 20, 2010, in Palo Alto, California.
2011: Talulah Riley and Elon Musk attend the 2011 Orange British Academy Film Awards at the Royal Opera House on February 13, 2011, in London.
2012: Director Bryn Mooser, executive producer Elon Musk, executive producer Olivia Wilde and director David Darg of the film "Baseball in the Time of Cholera" attend the "Help Wanted" Shorts Program during the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival at the AMC Lowes Village on April 21, 2012, in New York City.
2013: CEO and CTO of SpaceX and CEO and Chief Product Architect of Tesla Motors Elon Musk participates in a discussion at the New York Times 2013 DealBook Conference in New York at the New York Times Building on November 12, 2013, in New York City.
2014: Actress Talulah Riley (left) and CEO of Tesla Motors Elon Musk attend the 2014 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter on March 2, 2014, in West Hollywood, California.
2015: Tesla CEO Elon Musk speaks during an event to launch the new Tesla Model X Crossover SUV on September 29, 2015, in Fremont, California.
2016: Elon Musk and actress Kate Hudson attend the 2016 InStyle and Warner Bros. 73rd annual Golden Globe Awards Post-Party at the Beverly Hilton Hotel on January 10, 2016, in Beverly Hills, California.
2017: Maye Musk (left) and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk attend the 2017 Vanity Fair Oscar Party hosted by Graydon Carter at Wallis Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts on February 26, 2017, in Beverly Hills, California.
2018: Elon Musk and Grimes attend the Heavenly Bodies: Fashion & the Catholic Imagination Costume Institute Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art on May 7, 2018, in New York City.
2019: SpaceX Chief Engineer Elon Musk (right) speaks with NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine (center) while viewing the OctaWeb, part of the Merlin engine used for the Falcon rockets, at the SpaceX Headquarters, Thursday, Oct. 10, 2019, in Hawthorne, California.
2020: SpaceX founder Elon Musk celebrates after the successful launch of the SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket with the manned Crew Dragon spacecraft at the Kennedy Space Center on May 30, 2020, in Cape Canaveral, Florida.
2021: Tesla CEO Elon Musk and Armin Laschet, CDU Federal Chairman and Prime Minister of North Rhine-Westphalia, talk during a tour of the plant of the future foundry of the Tesla Gigafactory on August 13, 2021, in Grünheide near Berlin, Germany.
