Tesla CEO Elon Musk is the largest shareholder of social networking site Twitter after taking a 9.2 percent stake in the company. Shares of the messaging service rose by 26 percent after the pre-market announcement.
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According to a document filed with the SEC, Musk has bought 73.5 million shares of Twitter. Calculated on the basis of the price of the share at the close of the market on Friday, it concerns an investment of 2.9 billion dollars.
Musk is one of the most famous Twitter users. He has more than 80 million followers, but also regularly creates polemics about and through the platform. Last month he asked his followers whether they thought the platform defends freedom of expression. 70 percent thought not, after which Musk asked himself in a tweet whether a new platform is necessary and in which he stated that he is seriously considering starting his own platform.
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In 2018, he also reported via Twitter that he had enough money to take Tesla off the New York Stock Exchange, without giving any proof. That message, and a similar one a year later, caused huge swings in his company’s stock, prompting his Tesla reports to be vetted by lawyers before posting them online. At the beginning of March, Musk asked a judge in New York to lift that obligation, because SEC “attacks Tesla and silences Musk.”
Musk is by far the richest person in the world. According to the financial news agency Bloomberg he has a net worth of $237 billion, mainly thanks to shares in his two companies electric car maker Tesla and aerospace company SpaceX. Twitter’s market capitalization is $31 billion.
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