Elon Musk: Tesla chief uses secret code in stunning bid for Twitter

Musk has used ‘420’ figure in string of business dealings

Elon Musk’s sensational $43bn bid to buy Twitter had a very familiar and coded theme to it.

The Tesla boss offered the social media platform’s board a very specific price of $54.20 per share in cash to take total ownership of the company as he insisted he was the right leader to “unlock” its “extraordinary potential.”

It is not the first time that the entrepreneur has used those exact numbers as a secret code in his business dealings.

In August 2018, he took to Twitter to announce that he wanted to take Tesla private at $420 per share.

In a complaint, the Securities and Exchange Commission wrote that Mr Musk had rounded up the share price from $419 to $420 “because he had recently learned about the number’s significance in marijuana culture.”

The filing added a quote from Mr Musk, in which he said he thought his girlfriend, pop star Grimes, would find the price he had chosen “funny, which admittedly is not a great reason to pick a price.”

Just days before his Twitter offer of $54.20 per share in cash, he had joked about smoking marijuana at Twitter board meetings by sharing a meme of him surrounded by smoke while a guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast.

“Twitter’s next board meeting is gonna be lit,” a caption on the meme stated. Mr Musk is trying to get himself released from an agreement with the SEC that requires a Tesla lawyer to check all tweets about the company before they are posted.

In December 2019, when Tesla stock hit $420 per share, Mr Musk tweeted “the stock is so high lol.”

And in 2020 Tesla changed the price of the Tesla Model S sedan to $69,420.

The origins of 420 in marijuana culture are not exaclty clear, with a string of mostly debunked theories about why they have become intertwined.

These have included police radio codes for marijuana smoking, a secret code among high school students in the 1970s, and a reference to California’s criminal code, none of which appear accurate.

But April 20, or “420 “ is a day recognised by marijuana smokers as “Weed Day.”