Elon Musk: Tesla CEO joins Twitter with 9.2 percent stake

This comes as a surprise. Tesla boss Elon Musk has just taken a chunk of money in his hands and become Twitter’s largest shareholder. The tech billionaire now holds 9.2 percent of the shares in the short news service, which has caused Twitter’s stock to boom.

Elon Musk buys into Twitter

The move comes as a surprise, although the eccentric tech billionaire Elon Musk can actually be trusted with anything. Musk, who is currently the richest person in the world with an estimated fortune of around 273 billion U.S. dollars, bought a 9.2 percent stake in the short message service Twitter. By comparison, Twitter has a market capitalization of around 31 billion US dollars.

This step is particularly surprising because at the end of March Musk himself was still thinking (on Twitter) about founding his own social network as an alternative to Twitter in response to a survey on the subject of freedom of expression.

In a poll, Musk had people vote on whether the social network adhered to the principle of free speech and expression. 70.4 percent of the more than two million votes cast disagreed. “The consequences of this poll will be important,” the Tesla CEO wrote below.

Twitter stock at record high

Twitter shareholders should have been pleased with the entry of Elon Musk, after all, the security of the social network rose briefly after the announcement by about 26 percent. Musk himself is one of the biggest Twitter users and currently has around 80.3 million followers.

As his first “official act” as Twitter’s new shareholder, the world’s richest man launched a new survey – including an intentional typo – and wants to know whether Twitter should introduce an edit button in the future so that sent tweets can be edited. 75 percent of the current 1.15 million votes are in favor. Whether this will actually be implemented, however, remains to be seen.