Elon Musk is an entrepreneur and CEO and Owner Of SpaceX and Tesla with an esteemed net worth of $270 billion. Recently, Elon bought 9.2% of Twitter’s equity share two weeks after he criticized the platform for not adhering to free speech principles. This big leap made him the largest shareholder in the company followed by Vanguard (8.8%) and Morgan Stanley (8.4%). News of the acquisition sent shares of Twitter soaring 22% in early trading. Musk did not disclose what he paid for the shares.
Some reports tease that Elon spent around $4 billion to give users an edit button. On April 5, he put a poll on Twitter that asked users “Do you want an edit button?” with mischief options “yse or on.” Obviously, he did that on purpose but users took it seriously where 77% of them want an edit button. Now, the debate is open on whether we should get such a button or not.
What makes Musk the famous tweeter?
Musk has 80 million Twitter followers, far more than any other CEO. And he’s a frequent tweeter, using it as his primary form of news coverage on both Tesla and SpaceX, neither of which have the traditional PR department in place other companies.
In 2018, Musk tweeted that he would take Tesla private for $420 a share and had “secured funded” to do just that. It later became clear that while he was discussing funding for this offer, funding was not guaranteed at all.
Musk resolved the matter by relinquishing his role as Tesla chairman, although he remains the CEO. He and Tesla also paid a fine of $20 million each, with Musk compensating the company for his payment by buying an additional $20 million in Tesla stock. He also agreed that all his future tweets that may contain material company information be reviewed by other Tesla executives before sending them.
Could Musk buy Twitter completely?
Twitter’s $31.5 billion market value is a fraction of what rival social media giant Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, is worth. And Twitter’s stock has lost more than half of its value since February 2021. The company reported that its efforts to tackle misleading content around the US elections cost the platform some users. Still, it would probably be too expensive for Musk to buy Twitter on his own, said Ives, especially since most of his wealth is tied up in his holdings of Tesla and SpaceX shares.
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