Tesla CEO, Elon Musk, has offered to take over Twitter for $41 billion just a week after taking a 9.2% stake in it, but has said at a conference in Vancouver that he is not sure his offer will be successful.
Musk has said that he has a “Plan B” in place but we are currently not sure if this will be needed as the Twitter board have told employees that they are still considering the offer.
Whilst at TED2022 in Vancouver, Musk explained that he thought Twitter had “kind of become the de facto town square” as “an inclusive arena for free speech”. He added:
“It’s just really important that people have both the reality and the perception that they’re able to speak freely within the bounds of the law,”
“This is not a way to sort of make money. My strong intuitive sense is that having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important,”
Days after declining taking a seat on the Twitter board, which would have meant he wouldn’t be able to take over the company, Musk said in a letter to Bret Taylor, the chairman of Twitter:
“I invested in Twitter as 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,”
“Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it,”
