Billionaire Elon Musk has offered to buy
for $54.20 per share, in an all-cash deal, according to a regulatory filing.Musk bought 9.3 percent in the company earlier this month, becoming the biggest shareholder in the social media platform.
At $54.20/share, the offer price represents an 18.21 percent premium from Twitter's closing price on Wednesday. From April 1, when Musk's investment in the company was first announced, the offer price represents a 38 percent premium.
Musk said Twitter has "extraordinary potential" and that he will unlock it. He also added that Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.
In a significant departure from what most had been expecting following Musk's 9.3 percent stake, Twitter's CEO Parag Agrawal announced earlier this week that the SpaceX CEO will not be joining Twitter's board.
Over the weekend, Musk had been discussing Twitter's premium subscription service, Twitter Blue, where he suggested reducing the price, banning advertisements, and offering the option to pay in dogecoin.
Before that, he had polled his users to understand if they thought Twitter was a free speech platform - to which a majority of people responded NO.
Twitter's shares were up 12.74 percent at $51.63 in premarket trading, as of 6:41 AM ET.
Edited by Megha Reddy