Twitter’s IPO shares were issued at US$26 per share in November 2013.
The company priced 70 million shares at US$26 on November 6, 2013, ahead of the first day of trading. That price was the official IPO offering price—the amount paid by investors receiving shares in the initial sale—not the price at which the stock later traded on the open market.
When trading began on the New York Stock Exchange on November 7, Twitter shares opened at US$26, matching the offering price, but demand quickly pushed the stock higher. It closed that day at US$44.90, a gain of nearly 73 percent from the IPO price. The surge valued Twitter at approximately US$31 billion and made the offering appear dramatically underpriced in hindsight.
The alternative prices in this question refer to different moments or unrelated figures. US$44.90 was the first-day closing price, while US$54.20 was the per-share price Elon Musk ultimately paid in 2022 to acquire Twitter and take it private. The IPO price should therefore not be confused with either the opening-day close or the later acquisition price.