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Musk suddenly took a stake in Twitter and became its largest shareholder in one fell swoop!
According to documents released by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Musk currently holds a 9.2 percent stake in Twitter, nearly $3 billion:
As soon as the news broke, Twitter's stock price soared by nearly 28%.
And Musk "laughed in the sky" in the first tweet after the acquisition was completed, and the joy of the mood can be seen:
(lol means "laugh" in slang)
According to sources, Musk has sent a "strong signal" to Twitter's current CEO to push for changes in its management.
And Musk is also well adapted to his new role, the latest tweet, has become a boss who is eager to ask his own users for improvement suggestions:
Do you want to add an edit button (for Twitter)?
Where did the acquisition come from?
Musk has been playing this game since March 14.
According to documents released by the SEC, Musk bought more than 73.48 million shares of Twitter stock that day:
Before Musk took a stake, Twitter's largest shareholder was Vanguard Investment Company, holding 8.39% of the shares, and the remaining shareholders had less than 5%.
Now, Musk, who has 9.2% of the share, is equivalent to having the highest voice in one of the world's largest social media.
So, what is the reason for Musk's stake?
The majority view is:
Musk will change it after buying Twitter.
Yes, on the surface, Musk has a lot of obvious dissatisfaction with Twitter.
Just a week ago, Musk had already made various tweets and questioned that Twitter was clearly a de facto "public town square", but it was restrictive and did not abide by the principles of a "free city-state":
Again, the algorithm indicating that Twitter should be open source:
As a libertarian who believes in an "open market of opinion", Musk has always opposed any restrictions on speech, so his statements can be regarded as "normal operation".
However, just two days later, Musk published another imaginative tweet:
Need a new platform?
Just 5 words instantly detonated the external network, and there were enthusiastic fans at the time who suggested below:
Then you bought Twitter or not.
I didn't expect that in less than a week, it would become a slur.
In addition to social media itself, Musk has also made a clear statement of doubt and ridicule of Twitter's current CEO, Parag Agrawal.
Parag Agrawal, who is of Indian descent, just moved up from his position as CTO last December to sit as CEO of Twitter:
However, the handover of the new and old CEOs is not smooth.
In fact, Twitter was CEO before December as Jack Dorsey, twitter's co-founder, who was also the CEO of both Twitter and Square.
At that time, Twitter's stock price and performance continued to be depressed, and the CEO had "concurrent" behavior, which caused dissatisfaction among investment institutions, and Jack Dorsey was finally forced to give way in December.
Musk, on the other hand, has always admired Jack Dorsey, and in 2020 he publicly supported him as CEO of Twitter.
After the CEO was transposed, he made a public picture, mocking Twitter for driving jack Dorsey away:
In addition, the new CEO has publicly stated that Twitter is not bound by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which is completely contrary to Musk, who believes in "open markets of opinion".
All indications seem to be that Musk has been dissatisfied with Twitter and it, so he wants to take it down, planning to transform it into a better social platform in his heart?
Not really.
Musk's connection to Twitter
But in fact, Musk can be said to be a "heavy" user of Twitter.
He now has 80.35 million followers, making him Twitter's "first influencer."
Its words and deeds on the platform have received the attention of many netizens.
Visual Capitalist, a foreign data analysis website, has analyzed Musk's tweets in the past 10 years.
It is not difficult to see that the most topics of musk's content on Twitter are "SpaceX" and "Tesla".
These two companies have now become the focus of people's attention.
And from the time span of ten years, the frequency of Musk's tweets has been growing.
At the same time, his fan base has been growing steadily over the past decade, and it has grown rapidly from late 2017 to mid-2018.
And the reason for this is that the data analysis website believes that it is because Musk has posted many "hot topics" on Twitter:
December 2017: Announced tunneling company Boring plans to release a limited edition flamethrower.
February 2018: Tesla Roadster launches.
August 2018: Consider taking Tesla private at $420 per share.
September 2018: Musk appeared on Joe Rogan's podcast to smoke marijuana, which once made headlines.
2016-2018: The relationship with actress Amber Heard is highly concerned.
……
Musk can be said to have been creating a hot spot on Twitter, but no matter how "amazing" his remarks are, many people still expressed their desire to pay attention to his ideas on Twitter.
But contrary to Musk's fiery tweets, he is particularly indifferent on the Facebook platform of "old enemy" Zuckerberg.
Even Musk made remarks saying:
I don't use Facebook, I never use it.
Now, Musk has become The largest single shareholder of Twitter with a 9.2% stake, which can be said to have added a new piece of the puzzle to his business map.
Not long ago, Musk also made a statement that he wanted to build a new social platform, but now he directly "owns" Twitter.
In this regard, many people have expressed their views on Musk's move.
For example, Jill Fisch, a professor of securities law at the University of Pennsylvania, argues:
The status of Musk's Twitter stake could change in the future.
Charles Elson, founding director of the Weinberg Center for Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, said:
Musk appears to be advocating for change, not control.
But for Twitter, it will face a mess because Musk is not your ordinary shareholder.
But from a deeper perspective, Musk's stake in Twitter is more like a way for capital to expand in the field of public opinion.
And this "means" of big players is not only Musk, earlier like Bezos also bought the Washington Post for $250 million, and also invested $5 million in the financial news site Business Insider.
So what do you think about Musk becoming Twitter's largest single shareholder? Feel free to leave a message in the comments section.
Reference Links:
[1]https://candid.technology/elon-musk-twitter-stake-9-percent/
[2]https://www.visualcapitalist.com/a-decade-of-elon-musks-tweets-visualized/
[3]https://twitter.com/elonmusk