Elon Musk floats tender offer for Twitter, secures US$46.5B in financing

Elon Musk has offered to buy Twitter for US$43 billion, which prompted Twitter to adopt a “poison pill” to limit his ability to raise his stake in the social media platform.

Elon Musk has secured a US$46.5 billion financing commitment to acquire Twitter Inc. and is considering starting a tender offer for its outstanding shares, a filing with U.S. regulators showed on Thursday.

Musk has offered to buy Twitter for US$43 billion, which prompted Twitter to adopt a “poison pill” to limit his ability to raise his stake in the social media platform.

Musk is exploring, but has not yet determined, whether he will make a tender offer to acquire all outstanding shares of Twitter, according to the filing with the U.S. Security Exchange Commission (SEC).

A tender offer sees a prospective buyer pump up their bid price in a specified timeframe in an effort to win over more shareholders.

In the case of takeovers, it might only go through if enough stakeholders sign on to constitute controlling share of the company.

Earlier in the week, Musk took a swipe at Twitter’s board of after the social media company adopted the “poison pill” policy.

“Board salary will be $0 if my bid succeeds, so that’s ~$3M/year saved right there,” Musk tweeted Monday in response to a user’s post criticizing the board.

Musk, a self-described “free speech absolutist” who has been critical of Twitter’s policies, did not elaborate on the tweet. Twitter did not immediately respond to a request for comment at the time.