new Delhi: SpaceX founder and Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elon Musk has reported a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter Inc as of March 14, 2022, according to a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing.
According to a Bloomberg report, regulatory filings revealed that Musk’s 9.2 percent stake is potentially making him the largest stakeholder in the micro-blogging site.
Twitter Inc. reported in a filing that Musk holds 73,486,938 shares of common stock in his personal capacity.
Following the update, Twitter shares jumped 26 per cent in pre-market trading following the filing. This comes just days after Musk tweeted that he was giving ‘serious thought’ to building a new social media platform.
Shares of other social media companies such as Meta Platform and Snapchat owner Snap Inc. were also trading higher following the news.
According to reports, Musk’s shares on Twitter are worth up to $2.9 billion based on Friday’s closing share. The shares are held by the Elon Musk Revocable Trust.
Earlier, Musk, who is very active on Twitter, had made a tweet asking users whether he believed Twitter upheld the principle of freedom of expression. The Tesla CEO has been vocal of the social media platform and its policies of late, saying the company is undermining democracy by failing to adhere to such principles.
Elon Musk has more than 80 million followers on Twitter since joining in 2009 and has used the platform to make several announcements, including teasing a private deal for Tesla that landed him under regulatory scrutiny.
Musk also leads brain-chip start-up Neuralink and infrastructure firm The Boring Company.
Meanwhile, Twitter’s billionaire co-founders Musk and Jack Dorsey have some common ground in their dismissal of so-called Web3, a vague term for a utopian version of the decentralized Internet.