Elon Musk wants to buy out Twitter in $43-billion unsolicited bid

Offer price of $54.20 per share is 38% premium to Twitter's Apr 1 close, the last trading day before his stake in the platform was made public

Billionaire Elon Musk took aim at Twitter Inc with a $43 billion cash takeover offer on Thursday, with the Tesla CEO saying the social media giant needs to be taken private to grow and become a platform for free speech.

"Twitter has extraordinary potential. I will unlock it," Musk, who is already the company's second-largest shareholder, said in a letter to the San Francisco-based company's board on Wednesday. The offer was made public in a regulatory filing on Thursday.

Musk's offer price of $54.20 per share represents a 38 per cent premium to Twitter's April 1 close, the last trading day before