Elon Musk now owns 9.2 percent of Twitter

UPDATE 4/25/2022 4:13 PM ET: Elon Musk is officially buying Twitter. Twitter “has entered into a definitive agreement to be acquired by an entity wholly owned by Elon Musk.” The transaction is valued at nearly $44 billion. The original story follows below.

Elon Musk now owns a sizable chunk of Twitter, according to a 13G filing noticed first by Bloomberg News.

That’s interesting in light of Musk’s recent musings about Twitter, on Twitter, but the more interesting part? He finalized the stock purchase before he decided to run a poll about free speech on Twitter.

The filing was released by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday. That’s two weeks after Musk asked his Twitter followers to vote on whether Twitter adheres to the principle of free speech or not. His followers didn’t think so, with 70.4-percent saying ‘No’.

The timing of that poll, which was two weeks after the 13G filing required by the SEC, now seems to be in bad faith and typical Elon shitposting.

READ MORE: Elon Musk is no longer joining Twitter’s Board in surprise decision

It seems that Musk himself doesn’t think “a new platform [is] needed?“, just for him to have a hand in deciding things on the existing one.

That stake, which is held by Musk’s Trust, is worth a whopping $2.89 billion, based on Friday’s closing price of Twitter’s stock. His holdings are what’s known as a passive stake, which means this is a long-term investment for Musk.

READ MORE: Elon Musk now sits on Twitter’s board of directors

That could mean more involvement in Twitter, especially at shareholders’ meetings. It could even mean a future buyout, according to Wedbush analyst Dan Ives.

Would a buyout make sense? I mean, Elon Musk has been in hot water for his tweets before. It’s also not the first time he’s tweeted provocatively after making some money moves.

He also had to settle with the SEC in 2018 for his tweets, which ended up with him no longer being Tesla’s chairman.

Have any thoughts on this? Let us know down below in the comments or carry the discussion over to our Twitter or Facebook.

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Joe Rice-Jones

Maker, meme-r, and unabashed geek with nearly half a decade of blogging experience. If it runs on electricity (or even if it doesn't), Joe probably has one around his office somewhere. His hobbies include photography, animation, and hoarding Reddit gold.