Elon Musk Buys 9% Stake in Twitter Valued Around $3 Billion
An SEC filing shows he owns 73.5 million shares of Twitter.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk purchased a 9% stake in Twitter a week after he criticized the platform doesn’t believe in free speech.
An SEC filing shows he owns 73.5 million shares of Twitter. It’s valued at $2.92 billion, making Musk the platform’s largest shareholder.
Then Twitter’s stock went up 19% to $46.88 once the news broke.
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
The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2022
About 2 million people voted. 70% of them said no. People told Musk he should either buy Twitter or start his own social media platform.
Musk is the richest man in the world. He’s worth $273 billion.
Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives said, “It looks like Elon has his eyes laser set on Twitter. We would expect this passive stake as just the start of broader conversations with the Twitter board.”
Musk’s move could push him into a big guy role at Twitter.
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Comments
Makes me wonder if Musk isn’t going to bring Twitter down a notch or 2.
The significance of this purchase will be seen in the passage of time.
And that time is every day.
He will have to fire a lot of people.
And by “a lot” I mean A LOT.
He doesn’t get to fire anybody with a 9% share. Maybe he can influence other directors to vote with him to make changes, though, like replacing corporate officers.
The next four largest shareholders hold a combined 20%. Given the way proxy math usually works, he would only need to influence a few large shareholders — and then sway the crowd.
The thing that’s smart about this is it’s an established platform used by both sides of the political spectrum (less conservatives lately, but it’s actually just cross-posted on LinkedIn and other platforms), has no competitor from the left (doesn’t/hasn’t needed one), and can become even more widely adopted than it is if it can actually uphold freedom of expression principles.
Even if they drop the policing and banning would you post freely there?
Quick way to lose your job when the liberal cancel mob doxxes you.
I would return, seeing that the scolds will now ban you for simply stating facts. I have a lot of friends there that I can’t really contact other than that platform, like it or not.
Fair enough…just make sure you have an insulated dummy account that you access from a tor browser if you want to stand up to anything leftist.
They will find you and drop you. Some of those little dirtbags probably see a Musk power move as a giant grab-net for delicious targets to kill off.
They can’t do that via any other kind of social media? They don’t care what platform you use. They are mad about you existing, period.
No, they don’t care what you use…but twitter happens to be a pretty radioactive cesspool for hot takes and life-ruining social mob movements.
Don’t make it convenient and stay off the ones with bad privacy policies like twitter and facebook, google is also a red flag.
Hell have to buy more than 9%, but it’s a start
Not really. His 9% can wreck the company if he doesn’t get his way. Musk moves markets and he is hostile to FB and Zuckerberg. Paying Musk $100B today for his 11% share might be a bargain if this works out the way I hope (or the way Zuckerberg fears, Let’s see if anyone dares to even ask Zuckerberg how he feels about this. Suddenly, personalities may become more important than shares owned.
I would think this also runs a chill up the spine of the other Masters of the Universe who despise Musk. Clash of the Titans developing? Could fix a lot of problems for us.
9% is a warning shot across the bow – that 20-30% could be close behind. The latter holding would probably be enough to win a proxy fight and replace all management (unless there were other dominating holders of the company already)..
There are not. There are seven institutional fund holders with more than 2%, led by Vanguard at 8.3% (assuming that Musk didn’t acquire his shares from one of these 7). Once you get past that group, it quickly drops to under 1% holdings.
Given his social media following, and the lack of dominant individual shareholders, there’s a decent chance that he would win a proxy contest for board seats pretty quickly.
Sorry, I was mistaking Twitter for Facebook but my argument is the same. There was a rumor (and false report) a few months ago that Musk had acquired Daimler Benz and it shook the market because of it was plausible and would completely transform the global automobile market. Same here. It will be impossible to ignore Musk owning 9% of Twitter which represents much more market share in it’s universe than Daimler Benz does in its own universe. Twitter, Facebook and Google are the “creepy line” that has been demonstrated to have the ability to sway polls by 10-20%. That is more than enough to rig elections. In 2016, Trump demonstrated that it WASN’T enough to overcome a landslide vote. So in 2020, they rigged the voting too. Musk has just changed the arithmetic of rigging the 2022 and 2024 elections. He is now a player.
The 9% was a very calculated purchase. It has teeth but says, “I don’t want to take over unless you leave the supporters of free speech no other alternative. I have enough more important things to build.”
I agree that it is a calculated move on the cheap for Musk. His networth as defined by market -priced holding is north of $250B. His most valuable asset is Spacex which is privately held so we don’t know what his true wealth is but it is very much higher than that. So Musk won’t lose any sleep over this investment and can afford to do lose every cent. I am certain he is more than willing to do so if it serves his purposes. In the meantime, he can wreak havoc on the stock price where Zuckerberg will be begging for mercy.
It’s a very powerful 9% connected that transcends what would normally be associated to such an investment. Musk is one of the most influential people on earth and is willing to lose everything pursuing his main ambition of establishing a Mars colony of humans. His investment in FB is a play thing. I expect the Masters of the Universe are already preparing a response, probably looking for their captured regulators to snap to attention and come up with a carefully crafted regulation to deal with this. I doubt Musk hasn’t anticipated this and is ready.
For Musk, it isn’t about money but the ability to accomplish his life’s mission. I’ve seen no evidence that he is welcome in the Davos cabal whose Fourth Reich is suddenly crumbling.
Yep Musk doesn’t fit their schemes any more so he’s suddenly the enemy after years of gushing reviews.
He’s not unlike Trump in that regard but he has built more from less, done less of the rich lifestyle, and is therefore less vulnerable to attack.
Jack Dorsey reportedly started he views the current internet environment as not being reflective of the original promise of an inclusive environment and cast blame on himself for in essence how banning, deplatforming and suppression became the norm.
I’m paraphrasing his remarks but coming on the heels of Musk’s poll and purchase might indicate his support for some level of reform to Twitter. Maybe, possibly, perhaps? If so then things may get more interesting.
I believe this is bigger news than people think. All we can do is speculate about where this will go. I choose to believe that Musk is concerned about the November elections and is so disillusioned with Biden specifically and the NWO in general that he sees an opportunity to derail that machine. The EU has taken the regulatory/legal approach to curb the power of the Masters of the Universe and all of the corruption that entails. Musk may be taking a more direct approach by changing the conversation about the universe itself.
I hold no love for goatface and his pretend to care. Just last year he wanted to go hard with the ban hammer on anyone who doesn’t agree with him.
If he’s walking it back it’s just ebb and flow for political purposes or he’s worried about his previous comments being actionable.
9% is a message. Once you hit the magic 10% figure, the FEC crawls into your pajamas and won’t leave.
SEC, sorry.
Wow, that was close! That would have made this a FECal matter and the Professor would frown on having that on his website.
Makes my point even better. Musk has even more leverage.
Can’t wait to see how Musk goes v O’Sullivans law.
A preemptive strike before the 2024 presidential campaigns heat up.
Musk has been dinged by the SEC several times for tweeting out stuff (usually about Tesla) that could have an effect on stock price and that may not be accurate.
Case in point: He criticized Twitter, then bought some of it’s stock. A cynical person could interpret that as attempting to drive the price down since he was already planning to buy it.
So take Musk with a grain or 20 of salt.
The SEC can’t do jack crap to regulate his purchase of twitter prior to buying it. He is a private citizen with the same rights as anyone else to make comments and purchase stock. He’s not a broker, so he’s not bound by those rules either.
Can they go punitive with his current business holdings? Sure…but then they have to deal with the fall out that will have on the market as a whole. Also, tweets aren’t exactly an official business communication, so I don’t they have much leverage with anything regarding twitter.
Not really thrilled that oligarchs have so much power to control freedom of expression, Musk included.
For decades, I have wondered why captains of industry who made their fortunes via the magic of capitalism invariably become financial angels for socialist causes.
Thank you, Elon Musk, for restoring my faith in rationality.
Because they got theirs, so now it’s time to stop other people from catching up.
I don’t see how Musk hurt Twitter by driving the stock price UP.