Elon Musk acquires 9.2% stake in Twitter
New York, Apr 4 (EFE).- Tesla founder Elon Musk has acquired a 9.2% stake in Twitter, according to a US securities filing published Monday.
The news has seen Twitter’s shares shoot up 25% in pre-market trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
The billionaire now owns almost 73 and a half million shares of the social networking platform, worth $2.89 billion, according to Twitter’s estimation, making him one of its largest shareholders.
Musk is a regular Twitter user and has over 80 million followers.
In March, he had criticized the platform and had asked his followers to vote on whether they thought it encouraged freedom of speech, with over 70% of the two million people who took part in the vote saying it did not.
He also took to Twitter to ask his followers if he should sell 10% of his Tesla shares.
Over 55% of the 3.5 million followers that took part in the poll voted in favor, leading to Musk selling around $5 billion dollars of his Tesla shares. EFE
After the survey, Musk sold his shares, but several media outlets pointed out that the sale had already been planned by the billionaire to foot a significant tax bill.
jfu/mp/ks
