Tesla and SpaceX founder Elon Musk has become Twitter’s single largest shareholder.
Hemant Singh – Mumbai Uncensored, 5th April 2022
After hinting that he might shake up the social media industry, Elon Musk bought a 9.2% stake in Twitter Inc.
Following Musk’s purchase of Twitter, the company’s shares surged more than 27% Monday. On its first trading day after the company’s 2013 IPO, the stock scored its biggest intraday gain. Based on Friday’s market close, the stake is valued at about $2.89 billion.
During a Twitter poll last month, Musk, 50, asked his more than 80 million followers to vote on whether the company adheres to the principle of free speech. When more than 70% of the respondents said no, he asked whether a new platform was necessary and said he was seriously considering starting his own.
“Given Elon’s prior comments about wanting to start a social media company, I would say it’s possible that he will increase his stake in Twitter or take a controlling interest in the company sometime soon,” said Tom Forte, an analyst at DA Davidson & Co.
The Twitter personality has been regularly in trouble on the platform and is one of the biggest personalities on Twitter. The Tesla Inc. CEO is presently attempting to withdraw from a 2018 agreement with the US Securities and Exchange Commission that imposed limitations on his tweeting about the electric-car company.
The unveiling will be another key test for new Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal, who took over after Jack Dorsey abruptly quit in November. Agrawal promised to boost responsibility, make decisions more quickly, and improve product execution. The startup established lofty growth targets, such as raising yearly revenue to $7.5 billion and reaching 315 million daily users in near future.
Musk shared a strange meme in December, just after Twitter revealed that Agrawal will succeed Dorsey as CEO. It portrayed Agrawal as Soviet ruler Joseph Stalin and Dorsey as Soviet secret police chief Nikolai Yezhov being shoved into the water.
“It looks like Elon has his eyes laser set on Twitter,” said Wedbush analyst Dan Ives in a research note, adding that the stake could lead to a “more aggressive ownership role.”
Twitter is particularly prone to any outside influence because unlike other tech giants like Amazon & Google. The company’s founders do not have the power to vote over its destiny. The firm has just recently recovered from activist pressure from Elliot Management, which began in 2020 and prompted Dorsey, who was serving his second tenure as CEO of Twitter, to establish a succession plan.
It’s unclear what Musk intends to do with his share. According to the SEC filing, the incident that triggered the declaration occurred on March 14. The kind of paperwork employed usually suggests that the investor is not looking to gain control of a firm or affect who manages it.
Twitter is under pressure to develop new things more quickly. To persuade sceptics that it was serious about growing its business, the corporation established lofty revenue and user growth targets. While Twitter has been gradually growing for years, its stock has lagged behind others in the sector.
Musk has slammed Twitter’s recent creation of profile images connected to non-fungible tokens, claiming that the social media platform is prioritizing the wrong things.
