Elon Musk has made a “best and final” offer to buy Twitter, saying the company has extraordinary potential and he will unlock it.

Podcast | Analysis: Elon Musk bid for Twitter  Podcast | Analysis: Elon Musk bid for Twitter  

Musk tweeted about the offer with a link to the SEC filing saying, “I made an offer”

 

The world’s richest man will pay $54.20 per share in cash, representing a 54 per cent premium over the Jan 28 closing price and a value of about $43 billion. The social media company’s shares soared 18 per cent.

Musk announced the offer in a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The billionaire, who also controls Tesla, first disclosed a stake of about 9 per cent on April 4.

The executive is one of Twitter’s most-watched firebrands, often tweeting out memes and taunts to @elonmusk’s more than 80 million followers.

He has been outspoken about changes he’d like to consider imposing at the social media platform, and the company offered him a seat on the board following the announcement of his stake, which made him the largest individual shareholder.

After his stake became public, Musk immediately began appealing to fellow users about prospective moves, from turning Twitter’s San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter and adding an edit button for tweets to granting automatic verification marks to premium users.

One tweet suggested Twitter might be dying, given that several celebrities with high numbers of followers rarely tweet. 

Musk is currently worth about $260 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, compared to Twitter’s market valuation of about $37 billion.