Elon Musk has made an offer of $54.20 per share in cash, representing a 54% premium over the Jan 28. closing price and a value of about $43 billion to acquire Twitter Inc..

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.

Musk can afford a takeover of Twitter. He’s currently worth about $260 billion according to the Bloomberg Billionaire’s Index, compared with Twitter’s market valuation of about $37 billion.

In a letter to Twitter’s board, Musk said he believes Twitter “will neither thrive nor serve [its free speech] societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company”

The takeover is unlikely to be a drawn out process. “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,” said Musk.