Elon Musk Exploring a Tender Offer For Twitter

Elon Musk is exploring a tender offer for Twitter, according to new security filings from Wednesday. A tender offer usually occurs when a potential buyer proposes purchasing shares from every shareholder of a publicly-traded company, often for a higher price per share than its stock price.

"In an updated filing published Thursday, Musk said that given the lack of response from Twitter’s board, he is now exploring a tender offer to purchase some or all shares of the company directly from its stockholders," CNBC reports.

According to the filing, Musk has received commitments for $46.5 billion to help finance the deal. Musk says he has secured about $25.5 billion in debt financing through Morgan Stanley Senior Funding and other financial institutions.

A Twitter spokesperson confirmed to multiple outlets that the company has received Musk’s proposal.

“As previously announced and communicated to Mr. Musk directly, the Board is committed to conducting a careful, comprehensive and deliberate review to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the Company and all Twitter stockholders,” the spokesperson said in a statement.

Yeah, sure.

Currently, Musk has around $3 billion in cash or other somewhat liquid assets. He spent $2.6 billion buying a 9.1% stake in Twitter in recent months, based on Bloomberg calculations.

Twitter’s board has since tried to slow down Musk's ambition with a shareholder rights plan, known as a “poison pill,” making it expensive to acquire stock beyond a 15% ownership stake.

So members of the Twitter board will likely still put the financial interests of shareholders to the side and reject Musk’s offer because the board values censorship too much. But Musk isn't going away. We discussed this in a column yesterday.

Musk first teased a tender offer on Monday, posting the tweet “Love Me Tender.”

We leave you with this: