billionaire Tesla CEO Elon Musk admitted at the TED2022 conference in Vancouver on Thursday that he “did not know” if he could actually buy it. twitter.. Comments came hours after filing a regulatory filing revealed that he had offered to buy the company for $ 54.20 per share, or about $ 43 billion.
Twitter has confirmed that it has received the bid, but the board still needs to confirm the offer. Share much lower value than the $ 70 reached last summer.. But Musk said the offer would be his “best and final”.
Late Thursday, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal Reportedly At a staff meeting, he told employees that the company was evaluating the offer.
When asked by TED’s Chris Anderson if he had “Plan B” if his current offer was rejected, Mask said “yes.”
He declined to elaborate.
Despite his immense wealth, many of Mask’s assets are not liquid, and some analysts wonder how he will fund if his bid is accepted. I am.For example, Wells Fargo analysts said Thursday: Musk may have to sell Tesla’s shares to raise funds for the acquisition..
Anderson asked Musk if he was “funded,” alluding to the infamous tweet that Musk would keep Tesla private.
“I have enough assets,” Musk said. “I can do it if possible”
Musk added that earlier Tesla took a personal tweet, noting that “funds were actually secured” and explaining why he “does not respect the SEC in that situation.”
He went as far as calling some of the agencies “that bastard.”
In September 2018, the SEC charged Mask By making a “falsely misleading” statement to investors on Twitter in August of the same year, he considered keeping Tesla private for $ 420 a share and secured funding.Mask and Tesla finally Agreed to settle with government When Revised in 2019..
Under that condition, Musk and Tesla each had to pay the SEC a $ 20 million fine, and Musk had to temporarily abandon his role as chairman of the company’s board of directors.
Brendan Smiarovsky | Afp | Getty Images
June 2020, SEC masks Was in violation Some of the terms and conditions that require the CEO to pre-approve a Tweet if it contains important business information about Tesla that could affect the stock price. Musk tweeted that Tesla’s stock price was too high and lowered the stock price.
The SEC is currently investigating that Mask is using Twitter in conjunction with the timing of transactions.
“I’m not going to blame everyone at the SEC, but I’m certainly not blaming the San Francisco office,” Musk said. “The SEC knew that it was well funded, but it was still due to an aggressive public inquiry. At that time, Tesla was in an unstable financial situation and the banks agreed to a settlement with the SEC. If you don’t, then the bank will stop providing working capital and Tesla will soon go bankrupt. It’s like having a gun in your child’s head, so I illegally give in to the SEC. I was forced to do it.
The SEC declined to comment.
Mask’s vision for Twitter
Musk also presented his vision for Twitter if he succeeded in gaining control.
“I think it’s very important to have a comprehensive space for free speech,” he said, comparing Twitter to a “de facto town square.”
He acknowledged the need for some degree of content moderation, such as an explicit call for violence, and stated that the service must comply with the laws of the country in which it operates.
But he said he hopes the platform’s policies and algorithms will be much more open and accessible so that people can criticize it and raise concerns.
He said that if a tweet was changed in any way, it would need to be accompanied by information explaining why. Twitter has already attached a link to the policy when removing or labeling posts that violate the guidelines.
In general, Mask said that “timeouts” are preferable to permanent bans.
He said another top priority was to get rid of the “spam and fraud bot” platform.
Twitter did not immediately respond to the request for comment.
-CNBC’s Lora Korodny contributed to this report.
