Elon Musk recently became Twitter’s largest shareholder when he purchased a 9.2% stake in the social media giant. The Tesla CEO also decided against joining the company’s board, but now he wishes to buy the entire platform at $54.20/share.
Since news broke on Thursday morning of Musk’s attempt to purchase the company, the entrepreneur had yet to comment on why the decision to make a bid. Nonetheless, at a TED Talk in Vancouver, Musk spoke about his attempt to purchase Twitter.
In his first remarks, Musk spoke heavily of the influence Twitter plays on the function of a country’s freedom and democracy, so he wants the platform to be as trustworthy as possible.
“It’s important to the function of democracy,” Musk said. “It’s important to the function of the United States as a free country and on many other countries, and actually to help freedom in the world more broadly than the US. I think the civilizational risk is decreased if Twitter, the more we can increase the trust of Twitter as a public platform.”
Despite the offer Musk has on the table, he did preach some caution for those who are excited about the prospect of him acquiring the social media giant.
“And so I do think this will be somewhat painful, and I’m not sure that I will actually be able to acquire it. And I should also say the intent is to retain as many shareholders as is allowed by the law in a private company, which I think is around 2000 or so,” Musk added.
Eduardo Razo is the Assistant Content Editor for BNM, which includes writing daily news stories on the news media industry. He can be found on Twitter @eddierazo_ or you can reach him by email at eddie1991razo@gmail.com.
