Musk reveals 9.2% stake in Twitter shares surge 26%

Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc, has accumulated a 9.2 percent interest in Twitter Inc, according to a regulatory filing released on Monday, potentially making him the microblogging site’s largest shareholder.

The filing came just days after Musk tweeted that he was “seriously considering” creating a new social media platform, sending Twitter shares surge 26% in premarket trading.

Other social media companies, such as Meta Platforms and Snap Inc, which owns Snapchat, were also trading higher.

According to the stock’s Friday closing, Musk holds 73.5 million Twitter shares, valuing his passive investment in the firm at up to $2.9 billion. The Elon Musk Revocable Trust owns the shares.

Since joining Twitter in 2009, Musk has amassed over 80 million followers and has used the network to make various announcements, including dangling a Tesla go-private proposal that landed him in regulatory hot water.

He, on the other hand, has recently been critical of the social media platform and its regulations, claiming that it is weakening democracy by failing to follow free speech ideals.

Meanwhile, Musk and Jack Dorsey, the millionaire co-founder of Twitter, have found some common ground in criticising the so-called Web3, a nebulous phrase for a decentralised utopian version of the internet.

Musk is also the creator and CEO of SpaceX, as well as the CEO of Neuralink, a brain-chip startup, and The Boring Company, an infrastructure company.