Reporting by XinZhiyuan
EDIT: Time
Musk bought 9.2% of Twitter shares, becoming the largest shareholder, Twitter stock price directly soared 25%, why did the "iron man" who "went to heaven" still build social media?
Recently, Musk has been on social media again.
This time, instead of being angry with his social media attention, as he used to do, he directly "bought" social media.
Just in mid-March, he bought a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter, becoming the social media's largest shareholder.
The latest news shows that Twitter's stock price soared by 25% as a result of this news, and Musk's personal stock price soared by $3.5 billion.
However, compared to Musk's 9.2% stake, Twitter's co-founder Jack Dorsey has a 2.25% stake, only 1/4 of Musk's.
Musk has always been a serious "madman", who pursues innovation feverishly and then expresses it in the ultimate way.
Portal:
https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/0001494730/000110465922041911/tm2211482d1_sc13g.htm
As the largest shareholder, Musk has voting rights and direct voting rights on Twitter, as well as a number of other rights.
However, the documents do not reveal any further details about why Musk bought Twitter and what he wanted to do.
In addition to Tesla, there is also SpaceX, running on the ground, rising to the sky, Musk's career has not been spared.
The purchase of shares, classified according to relevance, belongs to a horizontal correlation. Generally speaking, horizontal means eliminating competition, expanding market share, and forming scale effects.
So, what exactly does Musk want to do?
As documented in Iron Man Silicon Valley: Elon Musk's Adventurous Life, Musk argues that "I did it not because it would work, but simply because I wanted to do it, and that was my vision for the future of the world."
More than 3 billion is only a fraction, but it still has to be invested
Although, this little money is nothing to Musk, but only a fraction of the multimillionaire's personal wealth.
However, playing the Twitter card is still very unusual!
First, Musk is not a man who invests everywhere. Musk's prominence is nothing more than that: CEO of Space Exploration Technology PaceX, CEO of Tesla, electric car company, chairman of the board of directors of SolarCity, plus academician of the National Academy of Engineering, enough to make his name a household name.
Second, Twitter is not a stock with a high return on investment. Data show that in the past two years, Twitter's stock price has performed sluggishly, with a cumulative loss of nearly $1.5 billion. Of course, a momentary roback won't be a priority for discerning investors, and it's clear that Musk's focus isn't on Twitter's economic value.
Third, he has been a high-profile critic of Twitter's policies in the past. This is very contrasting, before, Musk has been a critic of Twitter, he either expressed dissatisfaction with the personal behavior of top management, or questioned the algorithm rules and scale of speech of this social media, but now, Musk holds a large number of shares in Twitter, is it hoping to promote Twitter adjustment and change at his own will?
One thing is at least certain, though, that Musk is a heavy user of Twitter, the social platform he's most obsessed with and the only one he's put into.
He joined Twitter in June 2009 and has received 80.38 million followers so far.
Just now, he launched an "do you want an edit button" poll on his personal account, and just 2 hours later, he received 1.1 million votes.
The content of this survey seems to be asking twitter's editorial management methods, related to Twitter's interface reform, it seems that after he invested in Twitter, he has already begun to transform the social platform.
In fact, as early as 3 days ago, Twitter had already posted a tweet about the "edit button", indicating that they were working hard to develop the "edit button".
So, this time Musk sent this tweet again with his personal account, and, from the previous work fact, it became a survey to solicit users' opinions, it seems that Musk really wants to make this change based on the user's opinion.
Previously, Musk had said that Who control the memes, control the universe. This sentence can be expressed as, those who get meme win the world.
At present, the penetration of social media for public opinion shaping is increasing day by day, and some products with Internet meme (meme) attributes, or viral transmission attributes, have become effective means of dissemination.
It seems that this pioneer and innovator, who has been on the road of hard power, has also begun to turn to soft power.
Resources:
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/04/04/investing/elon-musk-twitter-shares-stake/index.html