Elon Musk Has Triggered a Battle for the Future of Twitter

ELON MUSK HAS offered to buy Twitter for $43 billion, according to a regulatory filing on Thursday. The surprise move has been labeled by some experts as a whim to gain attention, while others think it’s a game changer that will end with him taking over the entire company.

The Tesla CEO, who owns 9.2 percent of the social media site and is its biggest shareholder, has offered to buy the remaining percentage of the company for $54.20 per share—a 38 percent premium on the price before his investment in the company was announced on April 5.

In a letter to Bret Taylor, chair of Twitter’s board, Musk said he had invested in Twitter because “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, Musk wrote, “I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form.” His answer to that is to take the company private.