Billionaire Elon Musk makes offer to buy 100% of Twitter

COLOMBO (News 1st); Billionaire Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for about US$41 billion in cash, saying the social media company he has often criticized needs to go private to see effective changes.

Musk's offer price of US$54.20 per share, which was disclosed in a regulatory filing on Thursday (14), represents a 38%  premium to Twitter's April 1st close, the last trading day before the Tesla CEO's more than 9% stake in the company was made public.

The total deal value was calculated based on 763.58 million shares outstanding, according to Refinitiv data.

Musk 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 per cent.

"Since making my investment I now realise 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.

"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 stated. "Twitter has extraordinary potential.  I will unlock it," he further added.