Elon Musk buys 9.2% stake in Twitter
Tech mogul Elon Musk has bought nearly 73.5 million shares of microblogging platform Twitter. According to a regulatory filing on Monday, this translates into a 9.2 percent stake in the company.
According to a Bloomberg report, with this Musk has become the largest shareholder of the platform.
The acquisition comes a week after Musk signaled it would shake up the social media industry. Twitter shares rose nearly 26 percent in premarket trading after Musk released a regulatory filing detailing the stake purchase on Monday.
As of market close on Friday, Musk’s stake in Twitter is estimated to be around US$2.89 billion.
In particular, Musk has been raising questions about Twitter’s ability to communicate freely, having been tweeting about free speech and the social media platform in the past month. “Freedom of expression is essential for a functioning democracy. Do you believe that Twitter strictly adheres to this principle?” He tweeted.
In a separate tweet, Musk said he was giving “serious thought” to building a new social media platform. Also last month, Musk asked a federal judge to quash a subpoena from securities regulators and annul a 2018 court settlement that required Musk to pre-approval his posts to anyone on Twitter.
Read more: ‘Critical thinking…’: Elon Musk on building new social media platform