Tech billionaire Elon Musk himself has doubts his attempt at a hostile takeover of Twitter will succeed. “I’m not sure I’ll actually be able to buy it,” the head of electric car maker Tesla admitted at a conference appearance on Thursday. However, the 50-year-old emphasized that he had the necessary funds to pull off the $40 billion deal.
Musk announced Thursday an offer to all Twitter shareholders to sell their shares to him for $54.20. Investors made it clear that they did not give the offer a particularly high chance of success: Twitter shares fell by around 1.5 percent in US trading to $45.18.
Musk has already bought a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter in recent weeks. The website specialized in technology coverage the information reported that Twitter’s board of directors wanted to defend itself against Musk’s takeover attempt. Officially, Twitter initially only announced that they were examining the initiative and would act in the interests of the company and all shareholders.
At his appearance at the TED conference on Thursday, the Tesla boss assured him that the attempted purchase was not about making money, but about establishing a platform for freedom of speech with Twitter. He believed that all views should be allowed within the law. Twitter and other online networks – also under pressure from politicians – gave themselves rules that go beyond the legal requirements when dealing with controversial content. In the corona pandemic, they took action against the spread of false and dubious information about the virus and vaccines to protect users.