ELON MUSK BUYS 9.2% STAKE IN TWITTER, TO BECOME BIGGEST SHAREHOLDER

Mon 04 April 2022:

Elon Musk, a billionaire, has purchased a nearly $3 billion (£2.3 billion) stake in Twitter, making him the social media platform’s largest stakeholder.

According to filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday, the world’s richest man, who is known for his eccentric behavior that frequently involves tweets, has accumulated a 9.2 percent position in Twitter.

The CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, who is among the top 10 most popular Twitter users in the world with more than 80 million followers, paid $2.89 billion for the stake on Friday at Twitter’s closing share price.

Before Musk’s interest was made public, shares in the microblogging site jumped as much as 26% in pre-market trading, adding more than $8 billion to its $31.5 billion market value. Musk’s stake is now worth around $3.6 billion as a result of the stock price increase.

Analysts believe the shareholding taken by Musk, who has been highly critical of Twitter, is likely to result in him taking an active interest in the microblogging site that could lead to a buyout.

“We would expect this passive stake as just the start of broader conversations with the Twitter board/management that could ultimately lead to an active stake and a potential more aggressive ownership role of Twitter,” said Dan Ives, an analyst at Wedbush Securities.

Musk, who only a few weeks ago indicated he was “giving serious thought” creating his own social media site, now owns more than four times the 2.25 percent stake held by Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey.

The 50-year-old – whose personal fortune is estimated to be $289 billion, over $100 billion more than the world’s second richest person, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos – has a history of getting into problems for controversial tweets.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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