Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud, a billionaire and one of the largest shareholders of Twitter, said he’d vote to reject Tesla and SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk’s $41 billion bid for the social media company.

The Saudi prince tweeted, “I don’t believe that the proposed offer by @elonmusk ($54.20) comes close to the intrinsic value of @Twitter given its growth prospects”, adding, “Being one of the largest & long-term shareholders of Twitter, @Kingdom_KHC & I reject this offer.” 

Musk’s takeover bid comes days after he rejected the chance to become a member of the Twitter board of directors. In his letter to the chairperson Bret Taylor, Musk detailed “I invested in Twitter as I believe in its potential to be the platform for free speech around the globe, and I believe free speech is a societal imperative for a functioning democracy”, adding, “Since making my investment I now realize the company will neither thrive nor serve this societal imperative in its current form. Twitter needs to be transformed as a private company.” 

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He concluded, “My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder”. 

While Twitter is yet to respond to Musk’s offer, it has said in a statement “The Twitter Board of Directors will carefully review the proposal to determine the course of action that it believes is in the best interest of the Company and all Twitter stockholders.” 

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In his first public appearance after the takeover news hit the news, Musk explained at the TED 2022 that he wanted to make the Twitter algorithm open source. The tech mogul has long had issues with Twitter’s rules regarding freedom of speech and had earlier hinted at building a new social media platform rivalling Twitter.