Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk said he doesn’t care about the economics of acquiring Twitter.
His comments came after a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing on April 14 showed the billionaire offered to buy the social media platform for $43 billion. “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it,” Musk said in a letter to Twitter chairman Bret Taylor included in the SEC filing.
Musk said his interest in buying the company is not due to monetary reasons but rather to aid the interests of civilization.
When asked why he made the billion-dollar offer in an interview last week at the TED2022 conference, Musk told TED’s Chris Anderson: “I think it’s very important for there to be an inclusive arena for free speech.”
According to Musk, it is vital for people to have both the “reality and the perception that they are able to speak freely within the bounds of the law.” He told Anderson Twitter accomplishes this as a “de facto town square.”
The offer also came from a “strong, intuitive sense” that having a public platform that is “maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is extremely important to the future of civilization,” Musk added.
It’s “not a way to make money,” Musk said, adding, “I don’t care about the economics at all.”
During the conversation with Anderson, Musk didn’t claim he would be the perfect leader for Twitter. He noted there would be “quite a few errors” if he were to acquire the platform.
Musk stressed that he was unsure whether he would be able to buy the company at all. However, an SEC regulatory filing on Thursday showed Musk had secured financing commitments totaling $46.5 billion to buy out Twitter.
Twitter has publicly acknowledged the deal offer but has yet to respond further.
On April 14, the company said it would “carefully review the proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the company and all Twitter stockholders.”
However, last night’s tweet explains that Musk has plans on how to take on Twitter.
The Barbarians are at the Gate
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 22, 2022
Many people were confused and a quote from the movie Connan The Barbarian came to mind:
Elon Musk is quoting Conan the Barbarian, in case you’re wondering.
— Ian Miles Cheong (@stillgray) April 22, 2022
The reality is that he was referring to a book called “Barbarians At The Gate”
Barbarians at the Gate is a book/movie about a leveraged takeover of Nabisco.
Book – Due to unhappy stockholders, F Ross Johnson, CEO of RJR Nabisco, decides to take the co. private by buying it on 1988.
Kravis entered the scene along with other bidders.
Kravis group successfully buys RJR Nabisco from its previous owners and Johnson’s efforts were wasted.
In business, money is equated to power, and those who possess both usually get their way with things. But you also need to strategically think of every action you will take, because the business world is not a safe place: there will always be barbarians waiting outside the gates.
Elon preparing to buy out Twitter shareholders:
Elon Musk created three separate holding companies on Wednesday as part of his bid to buy Twitter, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
The companies are called X Holdings I, II, and III, and two filings to the SEC state that all the companies have been established to acquire or merge with Twitter, “directly or indirectly.” The filings all referred to the plan as “Project X.”
