Elon Musk has made an offer to buy Twitter with a bid that values the company at $43.4bn, vowing to “unlock” the potential of the social media platform by taking it private.

Musk’s offer of $54.20 a share comes days after he took a 9 per cent stake in the company, becoming its largest shareholder but rejecting an invitation to join its board .

The move would transform the tech entrepreneur into a new media baron , able to set the future direction of a platform where he has 80mn followers and through which he has pursued personal vendettas and promoted his agenda.

The entrepreneur announced the offer on Thursday in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission.

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”.

However, he added that since making his investment he now realised the company would “neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form”.

“Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company,” he wrote.

Net worth: 265.1 billion USD (2022)

Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/elon-musk-offers-to-buy-twitter-for-54point20-a-share-saying-it-needs-to-be-transformed-as-private-company.html