Getty Image / Christian Marquardt - Pool
- A week after polling his Twitter followers about free speech on Twitter, Elon Musk purchased 9.2% of Twitter shares to become the largest stakeholder
- Musk spent $3 billion to become Twitter’s largest shareholder which rocked the tech world
- Read more Elon Musk stories here
As of Monday morning, Elon Musk almost has more Twitter shares (TWTR) than followers. News broke that the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, had purchased 73,486,938 Twitter shares for $3 billion. This move makes him the single largest shareholder of Twitter with nearly 5x more stock than Twitter founder and fellow billionaire Jack Dorsey.
What makes this a particularly odd move, and frankly one that we should’ve seen coming, is a week ago Elon Musk was polling his 80.2 million Twitter followers on ‘what should be done’ about Twitter. The initial poll was whether or not people believe Twitter adheres to ‘rigorously adheres’ to free speech. Musk followed that up with asking his followers if a ‘new platform is needed. Here are those tweets…
Elon Musk Becomes Largest Twitter Shareholder With $3 Billion Purchase Of Shares
Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.
Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2022
Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy.
What should be done? https://t.co/aPS9ycji37
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2022
Is a new platform needed?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2022
It’s worth noting that Elon’s filing shows he purchased the shares on March 14, twelve days before those tweets above.
Elon Musk is currently the wealthiest man in the world, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index which has his net worth listed as $273 billion. That puts him $88 billion ahead of Jeff Bezos. And a $3 billion purchase of Twitter shares is truly nothing to Musk who has already seen his personal fortune grow by $2.77 billion this year.
In the immediate aftermath of Elon Musk purchasing 73,486,938 Twitter shares for $3 billion, the price of TWTR shares jumped 25% in pre-market trading. So it was already a very sound investment for Musk before we even get to the what or why of his shocking investment.
Let’s check out what everyone’s saying about it…
Twitter Users React To Elon’s Huge Acquisition Of Shares…
There are so many things Elon Musk could do with $3 billion, and taking a 9% stake in twitter is one of the very most useless.
— Ken Tremendous (@KenTremendous) April 4, 2022
Posting this image is about to become a permanent ban. pic.twitter.com/Tj9etnGWgd
— Matthew Williams (@MatthewW1991) April 4, 2022
Elon at the next Twitter board meeting pic.twitter.com/VOEgkNyTkX
— O (@AnObliviousGeek) April 4, 2022
So he sinks the stock by suggesting he’s going to make another product and then buys a 9.2% stake at a lower price. There’s a word for this…
— Sean Ramsey (@seanrmsy) April 4, 2022
Elon Musk is now Twitter's largest shareholder
Elon Musk's stake — 9.2%
Jack Dorsey's stake — 2.25% pic.twitter.com/ehL6HaDBeE— Culture Crave 🍿 (@CultureCrave) April 4, 2022
Buy and delete it.
— THE SKIN DOCTOR (@theskindoctor13) March 26, 2022
BREAKING: Twitter shares jump in pre-market trading after Elon Musk discloses 9.2% passive stake https://t.co/VdGxtgMQ7j pic.twitter.com/e6XNOSc527
— Bloomberg Markets (@markets) April 4, 2022
Cool, I've been living off £0.30 for the past 4 weeks
— Tatsuo367 (@tatsuo367) April 4, 2022
Twitter shares soar more than 25% after Elon Musk acquires 9.2% stake in the social media giant.
The purchase has been confirmed in regulatory filings with SEC. The deal positions him as Twitter's largest shareholder. Founder Jack Dorsey owns 2.25% of the pie. pic.twitter.com/KTBJSBQCL1
— Silver Kayondo (@SilverKayondo) April 4, 2022
This one seems pretty spot on, except that Elon Musk certainly isn’t the only person wealthy enough to do this. I’m a bit surprised (in hindsight) that other billionaires haven’t attempted this with Twitter or Facebook in the past.
This reminds me of that Batman scene where Bruce Wayne gets into a fish tank in a nice hotel and when the staff try to stop him he just writes a cheque and buys the hotel. pic.twitter.com/H6mmDuasCE
— KingCam💙💛 (@camalonious) April 4, 2022
If Elon Musk introduces an ‘edit button’ he will immediately be welcomed with open arms. I don’t think he will, Twitter will never give us an edit button because of the potential problems it creates for people to tweet one thing, pick up tons of tweets, and edit a tweet to say something else, but it will be funny to see Elon joke about the edit button in the coming days.