Ebunoluwa Akinola
The Tesla CEO, Elon Musk who has been critical of Twitter’s content moderation policies, has bought 9.2 percent of the social media company.
With his recent purchase of stock in Twitter, Elon Musk has acquired more than four times as many shares of Twitter’s founder, Jack Dorsey.
His passive stake in the company is valued at up to $2.9billion based on the stock’s Friday close, and the estimated cost of the deal was $2.4billion, according to the stock price on March 14 when he bought the shares.
Twitter’s stock shot up more than 26 per cent in pre-market trade before the market opened on Monday following the news.
Musk’s stake in Twitter is a long-term investment, meaning he is a passive investor that minimizes his buying and selling of shares.
Dan Ives of Wedbush Securities wrote in a client note early Monday, “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.”
The entrepreneur tweets frequently but sometimes his posts have been controversial, even making him question the ability to communicate freely on the platform. Last month, he tweeted about free speech and social media.
Do you believe that Twitter adheres to a policy of free speech?” he tweeted.
In response to a Twitter user’s question on whether he would consider creating a social-media platform with an open-source algorithm and that would prioritize free speech and where propaganda was minimal, Musk tweeted that he was giving the idea serious thought.
