Self-proclaimed Twitter investor mocks Elon Musk by offering to buy the company at a $30 billion discount
- A self-proclaimed Twitter investor mocked Elon Musk in a letter posted on the social-media site Tuesday.
- Leonidas Raisini offered to buy Twitter for $14.3 billion — $30 billion less than Musk paid.
- The letter borrowed phrasing Musk used in his acquisition pitch to Twitter's board.
A self-proclaimed Twitter investor appeared to mock new owner Elon Musk by offering to buy the company for $30 billion less than Musk paid for it in October.
Self-styled "angel investor" Leonidas Raisini said in the letter, posted to Twitter on Tuesday, that he was bidding to buy the company for $14.26 billion, or $18.53 per share, claiming to have secured funding for a deal. He provided no evidence of funding.
The letter included some of the same phrasing used by Musk in his letter to Bret Taylor, the then-chair of Twitter's board, when he offered to buy the company in April 2022.
Here's what Musk said in his letter to Taylor:
This is what Raisini's letter said:
Musk bought Twitter in October for $44 billion following a tumultuous legal battle with the company. Musk has said that his aims for the site include a focus on free speech and a crackdown on bot accounts, which he claimed ran rampant. He took the company private, saying the changes he wanted to make wouldn't be possible in a public company.
But since Musk took over, Twitter has been sued by some of the thousands of workers he has laid off, faced an exodus of advertisers and celebrities using the site, and has allegedly seen a spike in hate speech. His leadership has been criticized by journalists, experts, Twitter staff, and the public alike.
Musk said in December that he would step down as Twitter's CEO "as soon as I find someone foolish enough to take the job."
According to his Twitter and LinkedIn accounts, as well as his website, Raisini is a music producer and DJ who has been an investor at companies including Apple, Tesla, and Virgin Galactic. Insider has not been able to independently verify these claims and was not able to reach Raisini despite numerous attempts.
Raisini's eponymous company says that, among other things, it represents and books celebrities, listing Afrojack, Steve Aoki, Martin Garrix, and David Guetta as examples.
Raisini has been a vocal critic of Musk. In a Twitter thread in November, Raisini called him a "pathological liar, a charlatan and a Super Villain."
Raisini's letter to Musk features the letterhead of Raisini Ltd, a London-based company. Companies House, the British government's register of companies, lists the business as dormant. Raisini Ltd did not respond to multiple attempts by Insider to reach it for comment.