Elon Musk exploring tender offer to buy Twitter; receives $46.5B commitment

By Ovunc Kutlu

ANKARA (AA) - Elon Musk is exploring a tender offer to buy Twitter and he received a $46.5 billion commitment for the deal, according to a securities filing released Thursday.

"To finance the Proposed Transaction or a Potential Offer, entities related to the Reporting Person have received commitment letters committing to provide an aggregate of approximately $46.5 billion," said the filing made Wednesday to the US Securities Exchange Commission.

It is, however, uncertain whether Musk would present the tender offer to buy Twitter.

"There can be no assurance that a definitive agreement with respect to the Proposed Transaction will be executed or, if executed, whether the Proposed Transaction will be consummated," the filing said.

A tender offer is a bid to buy some or all shareholders' stock in a company, which is usually made public, while it invites existing shareholders to sell their shares for a fixed price and at a specific time period.

Musk announced April 14 that he proposed to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share, which amounts to around $43 billion.

Twitter said the next day it is adopting a “poison pill” strategy to stave off the takeover bid that would take the company private.

The poison pill strategy allows existing shareholders to buy additional shares of the company's stock at a reduced price, which would dilute Musk's existing share of the company. The strategy is intended to prevent anyone from being able to establish a more than 15% share in Twitter.

Musk, the founder of electric carmaker Tesla and space exploration company SpaceX, announced April 4 that he bought a 9.2% share in Twitter, becoming the social media platform’s biggest investor.

Musk is the world's richest man, according to Forbes, which places his net worth at more than $288 billion as of Thursday.