Elon Musk offers to buy Twitter for more than $40bn

The news of the attempted takeover came just days after Musk revealed he had bought a 9.2% stake in the social media company and was subsequently offered a seat on the board, but then declined to take up the position.

In one section of the question and answer session, one employee asked how the company arrived to the decision to offer Musk a board seat.

With an estimated $274bn fortune, Musk, who is also the chief executive of the electric carmaker Tesla and aerospace firm SpaceX, is one of very few people with enough ready money to fund a private purchase of Twitter. He has hired the investment bank Morgan Stanley to advise him on the takeover offer.

In 2018 Musk sparked concern by smoking marijuana on a live web show while he was under investigation by the SEC for a tweet saying he planned to take Tesla private.

Agencies contributed reporting