"I think it's going to be quite painful and I'm not sure I can buy it," admitted the boss of Tesla and main shareholder of Twitter, who wants to take over the Californian company and remove it from Wall Street.
Interviewed at the Ted2022 conference, broadcast live from Vancouver (Canada), he assured that he was not looking to "make money".
“I just have a strong intuition that having a broadly inclusive, public platform that you can trust is extremely important for the future of civilization,” he added in this first speech since. the announcement that is shaking the tech world.
The richest man in the world uses Twitter on a daily basis to address his 80 million subscribers, but he also criticizes the network a lot, which according to him does not sufficiently respect freedom of expression.
He offered to buy the platform for 54.20 dollars per share, in cash, specifying that it was "his best offer and his final offer", in a letter sent Wednesday to the American stock market policeman, the SEC.
This price would value Twitter at $43.4 billion, up from about $36 billion today.
"You don't necessarily want to pay 40 billion dollars and something in cash?" Asked Chris Anderson, the conference manager, to Elon Musk.
"Technically, I can afford it," replied the South African-born entrepreneur.
Pressed on the question of funding, he repeated that he had "sufficient funds" and a plan B if the Twitter Board of Directors refuses his offer, without giving further details.
But he explained that he hoped above all to rally as many existing shareholders as possible to his project.
One of them has already reacted: Saudi Prince Al-Walid bin Talal said on Twitter that he "rejected" his offer.
"I don't think Elon Musk's proposal ($54.20) comes anywhere close to Twitter's intrinsic value, given its growth prospects. I'm one of the largest shareholders and the oldest of Twitter, and Kingdom Holding Company (his investment fund, editor's note) and myself reject this offer", he wrote on the network Thursday.
© 2022 AFP