Elon Musk will 'reconsider' his stake in Twitter if he can't buy the company: 'It's simply not a good investment'

• Elon Musk wants to buy Twitter outright for $54.20 per share.
• If the roughly $43 billion offer fails, he would "reconsider" his current stake in the company.

During the first few months of 2022, Tesla CEO Elon Musk quietly spent over $2.6 billion on Twitter stock. As a result, he's become the largest single shareholder of Twitter with over 9% of the company's stock in his portfolio.

And he's not stopping: Musk made a $43 billion offer to buy the company outright, a regulatory filing revealed on Thursday.

If the offer isn't accepted, he may dump his massive stake in the company and walk away entirely.

"If the deal doesn't work, given that I don't have confidence in management nor do I believe I can drive the necessary change in the public market, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder," the billionaire said in a message to Twitter chairman Bret Taylor.

"This is not a threat," Musk said, "it's simply not a good investment without the changes that need to be made."

That's a far cry from the statements Musk made earlier this month after Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced that he would be joining the board.

"Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming months!" Musk said on April 5. As a condition of his appointment to the board, Musk would've had to limit his stake in Twitter to 14.9%.

But less than a week later, Agrawal had another announcement: Musk "has decided not to join our Board," he said.

Though Musk didn't say why he chose not to join Twitter's board, some analysts accurately guessed that an acquisition offer might be in the cards.

"This now goes from a Cinderella story with Musk joining the Twitter board ... helping move Twitter strategically forward, to likely a 'Game of Thrones' battle between Musk and Twitter," Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told Insider.

In his messages to Twitter's board, Musk said that his $54.20-per-share offer was his "best and final," and he is "not playing the back-and-forth game."

CNBC reported that Twitter's board was set to meet Thursday morning to consider his offer.

Musk is believed to be the richest person on Earth, with an estimated net worth of $259 billion, much of which is wrapped up in stocks and other non-liquid assets.

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