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.
However, since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.
As a result, I am offering to buy 100% of Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash, a 54% premium over the day before I began investing in Twitter and a 38% premium over the day before my investment was publicly announced. My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder.
Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.
Actually, thinking on it more, if the board refuses the offer, then the markets will sell off Twitter shares before Musk sells any of his. That will give Musk the opportunity to buy up even more shares of Twitter at that discounted price, well below what he's offering, so maybe he'll then buy another 5-6% in Twitter holdings.
Then with some 15% of twitter stock, he repeats the offer to buy up the company at a lower price, say $45/share. Lather, rinse, repeat. At whatever point he breaks the 50% holding of the company, he has monopoly shareholder control.
So.... the board is facing a situation where they can either lose control of the company by selling it outright at the offer price, trying to negotiate higher which Musk promised wouldn't be considered, or refusing the offer and trying to maintain control while seeing their Twitter stock value plummet which might see them lose control anyway. It's a guess between how the market will react AND believing Musk is bluffing about sinking so much money into Twitter.
He could threaten to build a competitor to Twitter for less than a billion dollars.
But who would use it? Twitter has the users and users don't like to switch services. It's a monopoly and logistically more effective to buy it than to build a competitive service.