Elon Musk is now Twitter’s largest shareholder

Space enthusiast and billionaire Elon Musk has become Twitter’s largest shareholder overnight after buying a 9.2 percent stake in the social media giant.

A regulatory filing in the Securities and Exchange Commission shows Musk signing off to acquire 73,486,938 shares of Common Stock. The 9.2 percent stake has a price tag of US$3 billion.

Twitter’s share price has skyrocketed 27 percent at the time of the news and was worth $3.7 billion at closing.

The intentions of the deal have not been disclosed but Musk has previously aired his grievances with the social media site and has thought about creating a brand new social media platform. 

He recently held a poll on Twitter asking his followers if they believed the platform supports the principle of free speech, 70 percent voted "no". 

He followed up the poll with a seemingly dark tweet saying, "The consequences of this poll will be important. Please vote carefully."

At the time of the deal, neither Twitter nor Elon Musk made a comment on the acquisition of the shares but Musk tweeted “oh hi lol”.

However, this morning, Musk has tweeted asking if Twitter “needs an edit button” already using his new large stakeholder title to his advantage.

Do you want an edit button?

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 5, 2022

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO now overshadows Twitter’s former chief executive and founder Jack Dorsey’s 2.3 percent stake in the company.

Musk has infamy on the social media site and is known for his Twitter rants on cryptocurrency DogeCoin, pronouns and general buffoonery. He currently has over 80 million Twitter followers. 

Musk has even gone so far to tweet about selling Tesla stock which has, in turn, dropped its stock prices.