JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Gov. Ron DeSantis said on Monday that Florida stands to make a $15 to $20 million profit once Elon Musk completes his purchase of Twitter for $44 billion and takes it private.
Florida is an investor in the social media platform through the state’s pension fund and would see the profit thanks to Musk’s offer of $54.20 per share -- about 20% higher than the $45.08 closing price the day he made the offer. Shares of Twitter opened Monday at $48.62 a share, still $5.58 shy of Musk’s offer. Twitter shares hit an all-time high of $77.63 in March 2021.
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“This is a guy that has succeeded in almost every enterprise he’s ever done. And so he will, our state will benefit, we will get, I think $15, $20 million profit from our pension fund. But then he will make that company more valuable, I have no doubt about it,” DeSantis said during a news conference in Jacksonville.
DeSantis said the Florida Board of Administration wrote letters to the Twitter Board of Directors when it looked like it would not accept Musk’s offer.
“Look, you guys can make business judgments, but you can’t veto a great offer just because you don’t like Elon or because you’re worried that he may open up Twitter,” DeSantis said, referencing the letter sent to Twitter’s board.
But while DeSantis supports the sale of Twitter to Musk, he doesn’t want its headquarters in Florida.
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City and state leaders -- including Jacksonville Mayor Lenny Curry and Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis -- lobbied Musk to move the San Francisco-based company to uproot and head east, but DeSantis isn’t a fan.
“In Florida, I think we’ve done very well, particularly over the last few years, attracting businesses that are producing things,” DeSantis said. “We’ve worked really hard on vocational and career education, importing some tech company from San Francisco has not been high on our list. I think that what happens is they’ll tend to come in, they drive up the cost of living for everybody else. Yeah, they enjoy our lower taxes but you know, what is what are they really providing?”
