Elon Musk Wants To Buy Twitter For A Huge Sum & He Wasn't Kind In His Offer Letter

Elon Musk is one of the world's richest men alive today, and he made that very apparent with a sudden attempt to buy Twitter in a hostile takeover move on Thursday.

Musk took to Twitter Thursday morning to share that he just "made an offer" to buy the app for $54.20 a share, which adds up to be around US$42 billion.

In his offer letter, the billionaire says that he put in his "best and final" offer to buy the popular social media app, which he believes "has extraordinary potential," and by acquiring the app, he will "unlock it."

It's hard to say exactly what he would do with it, given that he's tweeted about everything from free speech and adding an edit button to renaming it "Titter" in the past.

He added in his letter that he's "not playing the back-and-forth game" with the offer and has moved "straight to the end" of negotiations, as he sees it.

"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," said Musk's offer letter.

Musk recently purchased a 9.2% stake in Twitter for $3 billion, making him the largest shareholder in the company and earning him the offer of a seat on the board.

However, he has since backed away from that board seat, and now says that the company won't "thrive" or serve his free-speech goals unless he transforms it as a "private company."

He adds that he will reconsider his position as a shareholder if they don't accept his offer, "given that I don't have confidence in management."

Ouch.

"This is not a threat, it's simply not a good investment without the changes that need to be made," he said in the letter. "Those changes won't happen without taking the company private."

Musk added that his offer price is good and the rest of the shareholders "will love it."

Some have already pointed out that his offer number, $54.20 a share, seems to be a subtle 420 nod, given his love for making marijuana jokes.

However, many Twitter users are not happy with the idea of Musk taking over the app and are even threatening to leave Twitter if he does. More than 169,000 tweets using the words "Leave Twitter" were circulating on Thursday after the announcement.

American professor David Rothkopf gave his two cents and tweeted: "We are the assets of @Twitter. If we walk out the door the moment @ElonMusk takes it over, it is nothing."

"And, I can tell you, I, for one, have no desire to participate in the social engineering experiment of that particular out-of-control megalomaniac," continued his tweet.

Robert Reich, a Berkeley professor, also jumped in and tweeted that when he criticized Tesla for its worker violations, Musk blocked him.

He added that Musk taking over Twitter might open the door to a return for former U.S. President Donald Trump, who has been banned from the platform for over a year.

Meanwhile, others, like Carol Ruth, jumped to Musk's defence and tweeted, "I'm going to leave Twitter if Elon Musk takes over," is the new "I'm going to move to Canada if Trump wins."

Now the only thing left to do is wait and see if Twitter bites the bullet and sells itself to Musk.