Tesla boss, Elon Musk, has purchased 9.2% of Twitter stocks, making him one of the highest shareholder in the micro-blogging site, reports say.
According to a Securities and Exchange Commission 13G filing, which was released Monday, Mr Musk, who recently took to the internet to criticize Twitter via his Twitter page, has purchased a total of 73,486,938 shares of Twitter, which amounts to 9.2%.
“Given that Twitter serves as the de facto public town square, failing to adhere to free speech principles fundamentally undermines democracy. What should be done?” Elon Musk tweeted.
Although, Mr Musk did not state the reason for purchasing that much stake, news of his move has pushed Twitter stocks going up by over 22% in early Monday trading. The stake, which was worth $2.9 billion on Friday, has now gone up to about $3.5 billion, following the effects of the news.
Musk’s recent purchases, however, is regarded as a passive stake, since it falls short of Wall Street’s benchmark for shares of ≤10% as passive.
Following Elon Musk’s antecedents, his move to acquire more shares in Twitter might be predicted to be his way of taking up active roles to implement some of his ideas for Twitter.
Dan Ives, Tech analyst as Wedbush Securities, seem to agree that Musk could attempt a noteworthy change at Twitter.
“I think he intends to go active and force change at Twitter. This is a shot across the bow at Twitter’s board and management team to start discussions. One way or another, he’s going to change the course of Twitter,” Ives said.
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Musk, in his earlier tweet, has teased the possibility of building a new app to rival the status quo, however, he might have thought about how a new platform might be a little bit of a chore, prompting the move to become one of the highest shareholder at a company he had heavily criticised.
SpaceX CEO, Elon Musk now owns more than four times the amount of shares held by Twitter founder, Jack Dorsey, who current owns about 2.25% stake in Twitter.