Elon Musk's 'best and final offer' to buy Twitter at $43 billion sparks internet frenzy

Elon Musk is Twitter's largest shareholder and owns 9.2 per cent of the company.

After Elon Musk shocked the world by not taking a seat on Twitter’s board days after he accepted it, the social media giant’s largest individual shareholder has offered to buy the entire company for $43 billion.

The tech billionaire made his “best and final offer” to buy Twitter in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. He already declared a majority 9.2 percent stake in the company earlier this month in a surprise announcement after which he was offered a seat on the board. He accepted the offer and days later, didn't take it up, prompting Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal to release a detailed statement.

The 50-year-old has offered $54.20 per share in cash for Twitter, representing a 54 percent premium over the January 28 closing price and a value of about $43 billion. This is an 18 percent premium to yesterday’s closing price.

Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, who has a net worth of $260 billion, can easily afford buying the microblogging site that he says has "extraordinary potential" which he can unlock.

Also read: Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter with $43 billion hostile takeover

Twitter overflowed with reactions to the news. Some supported the decision while others were not so keen.

“Twitter is not just any tech company. It's the driving force behind global "narratives" which may or may not be the truth. Hope Musk, does justice to this,” one user tweeted.

“If you have enormous resources at your disposal, you don't need to reason out your investment decisions!” tweeted another.

Here are some more reactions:

Elon Musk not taking a board seat is bullish for free speech coming back to Twitter.

The board seat was a proposed tactic by Twitter's current execs & board to curb his influence (limiting his maximum shares to 14.9%).

Musk can now pursue a hostile takeover if he so chooses.

— Jordan Schachtel @ dossier.substack.com (@JordanSchachtel) April 11, 2022

Go MuskTwitter! Looking forward to gamechanging social app. Happy to sell my shares to make this 100% happen.

— Ash (@Ash_Track_Me) April 14, 2022

One board seat??

I'll take it all pic.twitter.com/bHQKLqhyjP

— Bugsy (@BugsChief) April 14, 2022

@elonmusk is trying to destroy @Twitter by making it a private company that won't be on the stock market. If I was an investor I would get many people together to buy Twitter under Musk so he either spends more money on the company or allows investors to control it.

— Macgyver P (@macgyver_p) April 14, 2022

tell one thing that you can't say here

— Augusto (guzTwo) (@augustonz_) April 14, 2022

Nope, not a non-existent move. As soon as he rejected that Board seat, it was widely speculated that this would be his next move. He's now at 'check,' and if shareholders cave, it'll be 'mate.'

— Kimenyi (@_Kimenyi) April 14, 2022

He has recently asked whether the Twitter headquarters in San Francisco be transformed into a homeless shelter and had several suggestions like no ads for Twitter Blue as well. He also said that Twitter might be dying as many of the most followed celebrities hardly tweet. Musk is himself among the top 10 most followed people on the website.