Elon Musk Made a $2.9 Billion Decision Based On A Twitter Poll
Forever shaking up the world with his ego, money, and occasionally questionable behavior, Elon Musk’s newest move shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows anything about the man.
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He’s taken the world by storm and now he’s facing off against Twitter. World famous money man and all around divisive character, Elon Musk, has gobbled up $2.9 billion in stocks of the social media platform. Due to this move, he’s now become the company’s largest shareholder and even boasts having an over four times higher stake than its co-founder, Jack Dorsey, who sits at 2.25%. The advancement came following several ominous tweets made by the CEO of Tesla surrounding the idea of Twitter’s battle over free speech.
On March 25, Elon Musk, who has previously said that he was considering firing up his very own social media network, posted a poll calling on his followers to weigh in on a question. Calling free speech an “essential” partner to “a functioning democracy,” Musk asked if those following him believed that Twitter upheld this belief. To make sure his words weren’t to be taken lightly, a follow up tweet shared that the poll’s “consequences” would be “important,” so a deliberate vote must be done.
Responding to the billionaire’s foreboding and mysterious message, over 2 million users voted, bringing in a 29.6% yes vs. a 70.4% no. The interesting thing here is that Elon Musk already made his record-breaking purchase ten days earlier, so it seems that his mind had long been made up.
Forever shaking up the world with his ego, money, and occasionally questionable behavior, Elon Musk’s newest move shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone who knows anything about the man. In May 2020, he decided that Tesla’s stock price was too high and in a matter of seconds, knocked his own company down $14 million causing those holding a piece to lose giant sums of money. He also hates having his billionaire status follow him around, refusing to be considered one of the elite. This pox on his name has been the jumping off point for countless tweets and rants surrounding what his wealth really looks like.
Long having beef with the government and social media as a whole, Elon Musk has always been very vocal, especially in recent years. For example, there was a time when he referred to world class diver Vernon Unsworth as “pedo guy” after the diver shot down Musk’s idea of using a submarine to save a group of football players who were trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand. Although Unsworth initially filed a lawsuit, it would later be dropped.
Today, Elon Musk’s current Twitter coup seems to be in response to Starlink’s work with worldwide governments to shut out Russian news sources. Following the invasion of Ukraine in late February by Russian forces, governments have been calling on access to Russian’s news channels to be blocked following false reports from inside Russia’s government. This is something a self described “free speech absolutist” like Elon Musk couldn’t take, thus a huge possibility in driving him forward to sink his money into Twitter. Whether the shakeup will last has yet to be seen. As we know, money talks, so those behind the social media juggernaut may have not had their final say just yet.
