Twitter: intriguing deal sparks Elon Musk alert

The 9.2% stake in Twitter has potential to be ‘a serious distraction’ from Musk’s day job

Elon Musk
Musk asked his 122m followers whether he should resign as Twitter CEO – and promised to abide by result
(Image credit: Hannibal Hanschke/Pool/AFP via Getty Images)

Tesla founder, Elon Musk, loves to set the cat among the pigeons. In that respect, his decision to spend $2.9bn on a 9.2% stake in Twitter – making him the company’s largest shareholder – was a textbook move, said Martin Peers on The Information; and to add to the fun, “the world’s most talkative CEO” suddenly came over all “coy” about his motivations. “Oh hi lol,” he tweeted to his 80 million followers as shares in the platform jumped by 27.1%. Musk recently indicated that he was interested in shaking up social media to advance “free speech”. It had been thought he was thinking about starting his own platform, noted The Times, but he has now joined the Twitter board. Conveniently, founder Jack Dorsey – a friend of Musk – is “due to vacate his seat next month”.

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