Monday (4) got off to a busy start for the world of social networks (and the stock market too, by the way). That’s because today, Elon Musk Becomes Twitter’s Major Shareholderafter purchasing just over 73,400 shares of the company, equivalent to a 9.2% stake — or even the equivalent of an investment of US$ 2.89 billion, considering the closing value of the shares in the last balance sheet, finalized on Friday (1).
According to data from RefinitivTwitter’s second largest shareholder is Vanguard Group, with an 8.79% stake.
With the move, made official based on documentation issued by the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) released this Monday, the value of Twitter’s shares leveraged more than 26%.
Image: Alexander Shatov/Unsplash
Contradiction or opportunity?
The injection of values followed speculation about whether Musk might be considering creating a social network of his own. Last week, the businessman raised a somewhat controversial agenda on the platform itself, questioning via poll if the microblogging platform would be a place that respects freedom of expression and democracy.
“For a democracy, freedom of expression is essential, but do you believe that Twitter adheres to this principle rigorously?” he asked, noting to the respondents that “the consequences of this research will be important. Please vote carefully.”
The vast majority (70.4%) of the more than 2 million respondents voted “no”.
After that, he added even more fuel to the fire, questioning “what should be done”, since the social network “serves, in fact, as a square and that, by failing to adhere to the principles of freedom of expression, fundamentally harms democracy”.
While questioning on the one hand, he himself proposed on the other: “Would a new platform be necessary?”
Is a new platform needed?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 26, 2022
Twitter and Elon Musk, an old flame
The story of Twitter and Musk is not new. The executive is very active on the social network, counting 80 million followers since he joined the platform in 2009. He uses the network both to make important announcements — such as when he started accepting bitcoins as payment at Tesla — or even to “take wave” (dogecoin became known, by the way, because of a joke started by the executive).
So, it can be said that the investment, despite leaving many people shocked, is not exactly out of the question – especially since Musk is also known for having varied investments, whether investing in futuristic technologies in his cars at Tesla, or in developing of brain-computer interfaces with Neuralink, or even bitcoins (not to mention SpaceX).
With the purchase of the shares and the spin-offs that followed, not only has the idea that Musk could develop a new platform been discarded — at least for now — but the investment could increase speculation about a possible future purchase.
“That sends a message to Twitter… having a significant stake in the company will keep them on their toes, because that passive stake [de Musk] can quickly become an active participation,” Thomas Hayes, managing member of private investment firm Great Hill Capital LLC, told Reuters.
But whether this will actually happen, only time will tell.
