Say what you will about Elon Musk, but he’s always got something unexpected up his sleeve.
Just days after calling out Twitter for what he believes to be free speech concerns and hinting that he’d start a rival social network, the billionaire has become Twitter’s biggest shareholder.
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Musk has called out Twitter in recent days.
He put up this cryptic poll on Twitter recently . While he wasn’t directly saying that Twitter is violating his right to free speech, he certainly implied it.
Strangely, there’s no evidence that Twitter had taken punitive action against Musk before he posted this poll, nor was there any hint of Elon-Twitter beef at all in the 13 years he’s been on the platform — although a few tweets did land him in hot water with the SEC.
The consequences will be dire.
We made fun of the wording here — I mean, what importance can someone possibly put on a dumb Twitter poll? But it seems that Musk is putting his money where his mouth is. In the end, perhaps the consequences of the poll actually were important.
He pondered a whole new network.
Responding to a follower who asked why he didn’t just build a new social network, Musk replied that he’s giving ‘serious’ thought to this.
Evidently, something has changed in recent days, or something much bigger is about to happen, because Musk has made his move — and it isn’t a new social network.
He seems to be in the process of buying a large chunk of Twitter.
A new 13G filing released today shows that Elon Musk is now the proud owner of 9.2% of Twitter.
That’s a sizable chunk of the platform, and makes Musk one of the biggest, if not the biggest, shareholders in the company.
He made the purchase on March 14th.
Interestingly, this is more than a week and a half before Musk started calling out Twitter, on Twitter. It turns out that he was doing this while he was one of Twitter’s biggest shareholders. It’s tough to know what to make of this move.
It’s an investment of nearly $3 billion.
It’s a big move, no doubt. Musk’s stake is more than four times what’s held by Twitter’s founder, Jack Dorsey.
But while $3 billion is nothing to sneeze at, context is everything. Elon Musk is worth more than a quarter of a trillion dollars, meaning $3 billion is essentially pocket change to him.
Could he be prepping for a bigger move?
With one purchase, Musk transformed himself from one of Twitter’s most prominent users into one of Twitter’s biggest shareholders. While he’s had a love-hate relationship with the platform in the past, is it possible that he’s making a move to shape Twitter in his image?
He hasn’t mentioned the news on Twitter.
As of the time of publication, this tweet — “Oh hi lol” — is the most recent on Musk’s account. It may point to his newly public status, but he hasn’t specifically brought up the fact that he’s now a major shareholder in the platform he supposedly has beef with.
This will continue to develop, no doubt.
Elon Musk doesn’t tend to do things quietly, and he also has a penchant for playing the long game. We’ll see if this is just another investment, or if he has big plans in store.
Let us know what you think of this story in the comments!
