Elon Musk has offered to buy 100% of Twitter, days after Tesla’s CEO said he would step down from the social media company’s board of directors.

Twitter reported on Thursday in a regulatory filing Musk, who now owns just over 9% of its shares and is the company’s largest shareholder, sent the company a letter Wednesday with an offer to buy Twitter’s remaining shares, which it does not yet own..

Musk offered Twitter $54.20 per share. total 41 billion cash.

At that price, it represents a 38% premium over Twitter’s close on April 1, the last trading day before the Tesla CEO’s more than 9% stake in the company went public. The total value of the operation was calculated over 763.58 million shares, according to Refinitiv data.

“I invested in Twitter because I believe in Twitter’s potential to be a platform for freedom of expression around the world, and I believe freedom of speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy,” Musk said at the presentation. “Again, Ever since I made my investment, I realized that the company would not thrive and, in its current form, would not serve this social imperative. Twitter needs to transform itself as a private company”.

Musk stated that this is his “best offer and last offer” and In case of rejection, it threatened to “reconsider its shareholder position” within the social network.

Twitter shares rose nearly 12% before the market opened.

“Twitter has tremendous potential. I will unlock it,” Musk said in the document.

Musk’s move comes after he took to Twitter on Saturday to ask if the social network was “dying” and urged users like the widely followed but infrequently posted singer Justin Bieber. “Many of these ‘top’ accounts rarely tweet and post very little content,” the Tesla boss wrote, writing a list of the 10 most-followed profiles.

“Is Twitter dying?” he asked.

In other tweets over the weekend, Musk jokingly polled whether to remove the “w” from Twitter’s name and turn its San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter “because no one showed up anyway.”

He also suggested removing ads, Twitter’s main source of income.

Earlier on Thursday, the businessman had not spoken on his Twitter account.

The billionaire, who now owns about 73.5 million shares of the messaging company, has become a critic of the social network, questioning whether its rules “rigorously” adhere to the principle of freedom of speech.

These criticisms aroused suspicion in some industries, even among Twitter employees. He was concerned that Musk would use excessive force to change publishing ethical standards at the company.Sanctions were imposed on former US President Donald Trump’s messages, including the suspension of his account, deemed inciting the attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021.

Musk has amassed more than 80 million followers since joining the website in 2009 and has used the platform to make various announcements, including announcing a Tesla privatization deal that fell into hot water with regulators.

(with information from AP, AFP, EFE)