Elon Musk is going to attempt a hostile takeover of Twitter, it was announced Thursday morning.

This has been widely speculated about after last Sunday’s announcement from Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal that Musk had decided not to join the Twitter Board of Directors, after purchasing a little over nine percent of the company in March.

From that BREAKING: Elon Musk Will NOT Be Joining Twitter Board…

Just after 11 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time, on Sunday evening, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal Announced that Elon Musk would not be joining the board of directors for the company.

Elon has decided not to join our board. I sent a brief note to the company, sharing with you all here. pic.twitter.com/lfrXACavvk

— Parag Agrawal (@paraga) April 11, 2022

The possibility of Musk making those moves was something my colleague Nick Arama wrote about here a couple of days ago Bigger Moves Than the Board on the Way? Elon Musk May Have a Lot More in Store for Twitter

Musk is wasting no time in publicly announcing his intent to take over the company after his refusal to join the board just four days ago.

From Bloomberg…

Elon Musk has made a “best and final” offer to buy Twitter Inc., saying the company has extraordinary potential and he will unlock it.

The world’s richest person will offer $54.20 per share in cash, representing a 54% premium over the Jan. 28 closing price and a value of about $43 billion. The social media company’s shares soared 18%.

Musk, 50, announced the offer in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. The billionaire, who also controls Tesla Inc., first disclosed a stake of about 9% on April 4. Tesla shares fell about 1.5% in pre-market trading on the news.

The executive is one of Twitter’s most-watched firebrands, often tweeting out memes and taunts to @elonmusk’s more than 80 million followers. He has been outspoken about changes he’d like to consider imposing at the social media platform, and the company offered him a seat on the board following the announcement of his stake, which made him the largest individual shareholder

That Musk spent the week leading up to the announcement he would not be taking a seat on the board of directors engaging with his 80 million followers on things that he would like to see Twitter improve on and asking for their input means one of two things. That he is sincerely hell-bent on improving Twitter as a platform or that he is having a good time just screwing around with those who are leading Twitter and messing with their anti-free speech views.

We will find out very soon which one it is.