Eccentric billionaire Elon Musk has put in an astronomical offer to buy Twitter at $54.20 a share.
At this price, the world's richest person has valued the social network at about $43 billion.
In a letter to the Twitter chairman, Bret Taylor, Musk wrote: “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.
“However, 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.
“As a result, I am offering to buy 100pc of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54pc premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38pc premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced.
"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.”
In a previous text message to Taylor, he wrote: “As I indicated this weekend, I believe that the company should be private to go through the changes that need to be made. After the past several days of thinking this over, I have decided I want to acquire the company and take it private.”
It comes just days after the billionaire rejected a seat on the social media company's board.
Taking the board seat would have stopped him from a possible takeover of the company.
Musk already owns 73,486,938 Twitter shares, which are currently worth £3.3bn.
He is a frequent user of the social media platform and has more than 80m followers, but this is not the first time he has been critical of the platform's approach to free speech.
In 2018, he offered to take Tesla private for $420 a share. The deal eventually collapsed after it emerged that he did not have funding for the takeover and many shareholders wanted to remain as investors.
Musk is worth $259bn according to Bloomberg, although it is unclear how he would raise the cash for a bid, since almost all of that wealth is tied up in Tesla and SpaceX shares. Bloomberg estimates he has about $3bn in cash.
In a previous text message to Taylor, he wrote: “As I indicated this weekend, I believe that the company should be private to go through the changes that need to be made. After the past several days of thinking this over, I have decided I want to acquire the company and take it private.”
Shares of the social media platform rose by 11pc in pre-market trading in New York to about $51 a share.
Musk’s offer price of $54.20 contains a reference to 420, or April 20, a special day in cannabis culture that Musk has repeatedly posted memes about.
Elsewhere, Johnny Depp smirked in a Virginia courtroom when a lawyer for Amber Heard suggested that the Hollywood star was “obsessed” with Musk.
Depp has brought a multi-million dollar defamation lawsuit in Virginia against his former wife, claiming that a 2018 article on domestic violence she wrote for The Washington Post implied he was an abuser.
The actor appeared to stifle a laugh during opening statements in the case, when Ms Heard’s lawyer, Elaine Bredehoft, told the civil jury of 11 people that “Johny Depp is obsessed with Elon Musk”.
The billionaire tech entrepreneur has been listed as a possible witness by Ms Heard, along with Spider-Man actor James Franco, Paul Bettany and Ellin Barkin.
During the 2020 libel case between Ms Heard and Depp, the actor’s lawyer claimed that Ms Heard had an affair with Musk.
His name came up in the opening statements, as Ms Bredehoft explained her client’s charitable donations of her divorce settlement to the Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and ACLU, which Depp’s lawyers have accused her of failing to make.
“In addition to that, she was also dating Elon Musk by this time, you will find out that Depp is obsessed with Elon Musk,” she told the court as Depp sat just behind her.
“She was dating him, so he gave $500,000 to both of those charities in her honour.
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