Elon Musk, Tesla CEO has acquired 9.2 percent of Twitter’s shares amid complaints about free speech.
The purchase was revealed by Bloomberg News after the regulatory filing on Monday.
According to the report, Musk, who has long been one of Twitter’s highest-profile users, recently polled his over 80 million followers about the platform’s adherence to free speech.
It was gathered that Musk purchased the stake on March 14th. The share surge has increased Twitter’s share price up to 25 percent in pre-market trading on the news.
CNBC also reported that Musk’s Twitter stocks were worth $2.89 billion based on Friday’s closing price. Musk’s shares are classified as a passive stake, but Wedbush analyst Dan Ives told CNBC that the purchase “could lead to some sort of buyout.”
Musk had been publicly calling into question Twitter’s approach to free speech via a poll conducted on his Twitter account on March 25th. “Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?” the CEO asked, before noting in a follow-up tweet that “the consequences of this poll will be important.”
“Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy,” Musk tweeted the following day, before publicly asking whether a “new platform” is needed. Given that Musk purchased his stake in Twitter on March 14th, it appears as though these comments came after he decided to buy a stake.
Earlier in the month, Musk said he was a “free speech absolutist” after he claimed Starlink had been told by some governments to block access to Russian news sources. “We will not do so unless at gunpoint,” he said.
Musk’s use of Twitter has occasionally gotten the CEO into hot water. In 2018 he infamously tweeted that he had secured the funds to take Tesla private if it reached $420 a share. Eventually, it emerged that he had not secured funding for the sale, and Musk was forced by the Securities and Exchange Commission to have Tesla’s lawyers pre-approve any tweets about the company’s financial health, sales, delivery numbers, and more.
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