By Alicia Maher
The current richest man on the earth and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has offered to buy out 100% of all Twitter stocks from their respective owners. Musk has offered to buy the social giant’s stocks at $54.30 per share, totaling about $44B. You’d recall that Musk had owned nearly 9.5% of Twitter shares after last week’s purchase.
Musk Unravels His Twitter Intentions
Musk made his intentions known via his latest SEC filing, where he added that “this is the best offer I can make, and it is final. If it isn’t accepted, I might need to reconsider my shareholding position.” Musk further said, “I want to unlock the extraordinary potential I see on Twitter.”
I made an offer https://t.co/VvreuPMeLu
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 14, 2022
The Musk-Twitter Potential
Musk believes that the only way to make Twitter a 100% free speech platform is to own it 100%. Musk opines that a free speech platform remains necessary for any democratic governance to thrive.
Before owning any Twitter shares, Musk had earlier polled his audience on whether Twitter has firmly adhered to the 100% free speech policy. However, more than 70% of his nearly 2.5m audience voted no.
Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.
Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2022
After that, Musk bought nearly 9.5% of Twitter shares and even planned to join Twitter’s executive board. However, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal revealed earlier in the week that Musk won’t be joining the board of the social media giants. Agrawal’s tweet suggests that Twitter was willing to allow Musk to join the board before adding that Musk’s decision not to join the Twitter board is “for the best.”
Elon has decided not to join our board. I sent a brief note to the company, sharing with you all here. pic.twitter.com/lfrXACavvk
— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 11, 2022
The Twitter CEO also said, “We always have value suggestions from our shareholders and will continue doing so regardless of whether they are on the board. We will extend the same principle to Elon, especially as he is our biggest shareholder.”
However, Musk still aims to make Twitter a 100% free speech platform which was the central theme of his letter to Twitter chairman Bret Taylor. Musk claimed that the current way Twitter is run makes it impossible for it to become a free speech platform.
Many industry analysts had claimed that Musk’s refusal to join Twitter’s board showed that he has a hidden agenda regarding his move to become the largest Twitter shareholder. It is believed that Musk would have wanted to own more than 10% of Twitter shares, but the company’s policy forbade any board member to hold up to 15% of its shares.
Hence, that might be his reason for wanting to own 100% of Twitter shares. After becoming Twitter’s largest shareholder, Musk has made several suggestions for the Twitter development team via his tweets. Two of his popular recommendations include a tweet edit button and a subscription service that supports DOGE payments.
Musk’s Twitter Influence
Even before he became the largest Twitter shareholder, Musk already enjoyed huge followership and influence on the platform. Despite incurring regulatory wrath each time he tweets about Tesla’s stock price, his tweets have always influenced markets.
In particular, his tweets about the crypto market often resulted in massive volatility in the crypto market. Musk’s 81m Twitter followers make him the 8th most followed Twitter account.