sincere Tesla CEO Elon Musk has bought a giant stake in Twitter This makes him the largest outside shareholder in the social media stock, shortly after the company was criticized for failing to uphold the principles of free speech.
Musk owns 73,486,938 shares of Twitter, which represents a 9.2% of the passive stake in the company, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission 13G filing released Monday. The stake is worth $2.89 billion, based on Twitter’s closing price on Friday.
Musk’s purchase comes less than two weeks after Musk criticized the company, polling people on Twitter about whether Twitter adheres to the principles of free speech. “Given that Twitter serves as a de facto public square for the town, failure to adhere to the principles of free speech fundamentally undermines democracy,” Musk wrote on Twitter. “What needs to be done?”
Late last month, Musk also said he was considering building New social media platform.
While it is categorized as a negative stake, investors have been bidding higher on the possibility that it could lead to something more. Twitter shares are up more than 25% in the primary market.
“Musk could try to take a more aggressive stance here on Twitter,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said Monday on CNBC.croak box“This could eventually lead to some kind of takeover.”
“That makes sense given what Musk was talking about at least, at least from a social media perspective,” Ives said.
Musk is a frequent Twitter user and has over 80 million followers on the platform. However, some of his tweets have kept the Tesla CEO in a hot spot over the years.
On August 7, 2018, Musk tweeted that he had “funded” to acquire Tesla’s private company at $420 per share. The 12 months since that tweet have been a playground train for Musk and Tesla shareholders. At the time, the company set performance records, but it also had to deal with litigation, government inquiries, and layoffs. Musk also reached a settlement with the Securities and Exchange Commission, which fired him as Chairman of the Board of Directors at Tesla.