The Patriot Post® · Musk Aims to Buy Twitter, Restore Free Speech
In what he called his “best and final offer,” billionaire Elon Musk proposed buying Twitter for more than $43 billion. “I am not playing the back-and-forth game,” Musk said. “I have moved straight to the end.”
The offer comes only a couple of weeks after Musk bought a 9.2% stake in the social media giant, and just days after he declined a seat on the board. Many speculated that the latter move was because his board seat would come with a limit of owning 14.9% of the company. That speculation seems to have been correct, given that he not only wants to buy Twitter but make it private. In other words, no board at all. Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal would probably be out of a job, too.
It’s an incredible offer — $54.20 per share in cash, which is 54% higher than the day before he bought his stake. Since that purchase, and especially in the wake of Musk’s offer, Twitter’s stock rose to nearly $50 a share, though that’s still less than its all-time high of $73.34. “It’s a high price, and your shareholders will love it,” Musk argued. “Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it.”
Twitter’s board responded that it will “carefully review” Musk’s “unsolicited” offer. If the board rejects his offer, Musk says he’ll consider selling his shares “given that I don’t have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market.” Ouch. Wouldn’t it be interesting if his offer is rejected and Twitter’s stock collapses because investors share his view.
“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,” he added. “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.”
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Indeed, what makes Musk’s moves on Twitter so fascinating and worthy of a cheer is that he calls himself a “free speech absolutist.” Agrawal and the leftist totalitarians who run Twitter have nothing but contempt for free speech, and thus one of the biggest speech platforms in a country governed by the First Amendment is decidedly opposed to this fundamental civil right. Musk clearly wants to change that.
Few observers may see another factor that makes this story so compelling. Commentator Dennis Prager is known for repeatedly making the case that the Left ruins everything it touches. (His most recent example came just this week.) The Left never builds anything, he says, it just wrecks institutions made by others. The Left ruined Twitter specifically and social media and Big Tech more generally.
Yet if Musk is successful, it will be an ever-so-rare case of the opposite happening — something being dramatically rescued from the Left. Conservatives would no longer find themselves stifled or shut out entirely from a major platform, or scrambling to build an inferior or copy-cat alternative.
Moreover, as commentator Frank Fleming hilariously observed, “Elon Musk is literally attempting to own the libs.”
It’s no wonder The New York Times was hand-wringing even before this buyout offer about the “threat” Musk poses and “the treacherous situation that Twitter now finds itself in.”
Just to be clear, that “treacherous situation” would be upholding our nation’s most fundamental values. That’s why we’re cheering for Musk to succeed.