UPDATED: Elon Musk has acquired about 9.2% of the shares in Twitter, the social network disclosed in an SEC filing Monday, making the billionaire the largest shareholder in the company.
Following the disclosure before the market opened, Twitter’s stock price boomed more than 25% in mid-morning trading. Shares closed at $49.97 apiece, up 27% on the day, their highest point since Nov. 17 and the biggest one-day gain for Twitter since its 2013 IPO.
Musk hasn’t yet commented publicly about his holdings in Twitter. However, Musk — the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX — recently suggested that Twitter is not following principles of free speech and that he sees a need for an alternative platform.
“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?” Musk tweeted on March 26. That came a day after he polled his 80 million Twitter followers about whether Twitter “rigorously adheres” to the principle of free speech; 70% of the 2 million users who voted said Twitter does not.
Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.
Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2022
According to the SEC filing, Musk acquired the Twitter shares on March 14 — which was prior to his commentary about Twitter not being fully committed to free speech. Per the filing, Musk bought 73.5 million shares, representing 9.2% of the 800.6 million shares of Twitter common stock outstanding as of Feb. 10, 2022. His stake is worth around $2.9 billion based on the closing price of Twitter’s stock on April 1.
Musk could be preparing to take an activist role at Twitter, Wedbush Securities analyst Dan Ives wrote in a research note Monday. With the Twitter stock acquisition, it “looks like Elon has his eyes laser set on Twitter and we would expect this passive stake as just the start of broader conversations with the Twitter board/management that could ultimately lead to an active stake and a potential more aggressive ownership role of Twitter,” Ives wrote.
Musk is currently the world’s wealthiest person, with a net worth of almost $288 billion; in second place is Amazon founder Jeff Bezos with a net worth of $189 billion, according to Fortune.
Last month, Endeavor announced that Musk will resign from its board of directors effective June 30. Musk also founded The Boring Company, a transportation infrastructure business, and has co-founded neuro-technology company NeuraLink and AI research lab OpenAI.
From Variety US