Elon Musk announces offer to buy Twitter, netizens respond

The billionaire CEO of Tesla and Space X Elon Musk offered to buy Twitter for $41 billion, saying that the social media company needs to be privatised for its full potential to be unlocked. 

Musk's offer price of $54.20 per share means a 38% premium to Twitter's April 1 close, the last trading day before it was made public that he had more than a 9% stake in the company.

Musk recently disclosed that he would not be joining the Twitter board. Analysts had hinted after this move that he might be intending to take over the company instead of letting the board seat limit his stake.

Read more: U-turn: Elon Musk drops Twitter board seat, deletes old tweets.

"Since making my investment, I now realise the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company," Musk said in a letter to Twitter Chairman Bret Taylor which is present in the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) archives.

"My offer is my offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder," the billionaire added.

Musk has announced the news on the micro-blogging platform.

His followers rushed to the comment section to share their opinions. 

An Indian fan, who claims he talks to the Tesla CEO frequently, said, "This is honestly the best thing that could happen to Twitter & to its users. Elon is an avid supporter of free speech & he truly believes that a lot of major improvements are possible for Twitter."

Another user, pointing out Musk's focus on freedom of speech, wrote, "Elon, seriously. It's a consensus in social sciences that free speech can't be limitless. You should keep investing your time in things you actually know how it works, like the engineering fields that u are great on it. Leave social matters to people that study it."

Musk has more than 80 million followers on Twitter and is a prominent user of the platform.