Elon Musk has made a “best and final” offer to buy Twitter Inc., saying the company has extraordinary potential and he will unlock it.The world’s richest man will pay $54.20 per share in cash, representing a 54% premium over the Jan 28. closing price and a value of about $43 billion. The social media company’s shares soared 18%.Twitter's shares jumped 12% in premarket trading. "Since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company," Musk said in a letter to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor.
"My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder," Musk said.Musk, 50, announced the offer in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The billionaire, who also controls Tesla Inc., first disclosed a stake of about 9% 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. Musk said he had abandoned a plan to join Twitter's board, just as his tenure was about to start. Taking the board seat would have prevented him from a possible takeover of the company.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.