Elon Musk becomes Twitter major shareholder and board member
Elon Musk has bought 9.2 percent of Twitter. The new majority shareholder also gets a seat on the tech company's board of directors. Musk promises "important improvements" for the platform.
Elon Musk has acquired 9.2 percent of Twitter shares. Thus, the billionaire is now the main shareholder of the American short message service. The share purchase already took place in mid-March, but only became known on April 4 through an official notification by the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Musk did not comment on the stock purchase until after the announcement. In a Twitter poll, he wanted to know from his 80.4 million followers and the Twitter community whether the platform needed an "edit button" - that is, a way to correct tweets that have already been published.
Musk now also sits on the board of directors
Already after this tweet, there was speculation about how much influence Musk would have on Twitter in his new role as majority shareholder. According to the New York Times, it was first said that it was a passive investment and Musk did not want to actively influence the day-to-day business.
However, this is not the case. It is now clear that the richest man in the world will indeed be involved in the further development of the platform.
Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal announced the day after the share purchase was announced that Musk would also become part of the tech company's board of directors. He said that after joint discussions in recent weeks, it had become clear that Musk would be "a great addition" to the board.
That because he believes in the platform while also being a fierce critic. Musk confirmed the news from his side with a reply tweet. He said he was looking forward to working together to make "important improvements" in the coming months.
Musk's Twitter stake has already become more valuable
According to the New York Times, Musk's stock purchase is believed to have cost circa $2.9 billion. The daily newspaper bases this on the share price that applied before last weekend. After the purchase was announced on Monday, the price of Twitter shares soared by 27 percent - bringing Musk's stake to 3.7 billion US dollars.
Prior to Musk's stock purchase, financial services firm Vanguard was the tech company's majority shareholder with an 8.8 percent stake. Former CEO and co-founder Jack Dorsey owns 2.3 percent of Twitter.
Titelbild: Keystone
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