Elon Musk becomes the largest shareholder of Twitter-Information Technology

Tesla CEO Elon Musk has become the largest shareholder of the social networking company Twitter after spending about $2.89 billion.

According to a filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on March 14 and published on April 4, Elon Musk bought 73,486,938 shares of Twitter, equivalent to 9.2% of the shares. The company’s passivity means that Mr. Musk has become Twitter’s largest shareholder. Musk’s shares are worth about $2.89 billion based on the April 1 closing price.

Twitter shares were up more than 23% in early trading on the news.

News of the Tesla CEO buying a stake in Twitter comes less than two weeks after Elon Musk criticized the way Twitter implements free speech principles on its platform. At the end of March, Mr. Musk also talked about building a new social network.

Mr. Elon Musk is a frequent user of Twitter to express his views; His account has more than 80 million followers globally. However, some of Musk’s tweets have caused trouble over the years.

On August 7, 2018, Elon Musk tweeted that he had “enough capital” to make Tesla a private company when Tesla shares hit the $420 mark. This comment and a number of other tweets have led Mr. Musk and Tesla to be thoroughly investigated by the SEC for suspicions of stock market manipulation.