Tesla CEO and world’s most notorious tech billionaire Elon Musk has spent $2.9 billion on a 9.2% stake in Twitter, making him the company’s largest shareholder.
Filings made to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Monday reveal that Musk has accrued a 9.2% stake in Twitter. News of Musk’s move initially causes Twitter’s value to spike by $8 billion.
We’re used to Musk pouring his every thought (both smart and not-so-smart) onto Twitter to his 80 million followers, but now the SpaceX boss appears to have put his money where his mouth his.
He has a famously fractious relationship with the platform, frequently calling for changes whilst falling afoul of the platform’s capacity to provide ample rope with its snappy, unfiltered messaging system.
Indeed, Musk’s first significant act as major shareholder appears to have been to lobby (again) for the insertion of an edit button.
Putting a casual (note the deliberate misspelling of ‘yes’ and ‘no’) poll out on a basic feature idea holds a lot more sway when you own a good chunk of shares, of course.
As if to prove that point, Twitter CEO Parag Agrawal retweeted Musk’s poll with the works “The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully.” It’s leaning ‘yes’ at the time of writing.
Is this the future of a post-Elon Musk Twitter’s product development strategy? Jumping to attention every time its most powerful and prominent shareholder gets annoyed or has a vague idea?
You can bet we’ll be getting a running commentary comprised of pithy 280-character quotes if so.
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Editorial independence means being able to give an unbiased verdict about a product or company, with the avoidance of conflicts of interest. To ensure this is possible, every member of the editorial staff follows a clear code of conduct.
Professional conduct
We also expect our journalists to follow clear ethical standards in their work. Our staff members must strive for honesty and accuracy in everything they do. We follow the IPSO Editors’ code of practice to underpin these standards.
