Elon Musk, the world’s richest man, is sharing memes on Twitter related to his recently becoming the social media platform’s biggest shareholder — which could come across as aggravatingly cringey, or worthy of inspiring a nasal exhale struggling to become a single chuckle, depending on your perception of the divisive figure.
Musk, the founder of Tesla and SpaceX, acquired a 9.2 percent stake in the company worth nearly $3 billion on Monday. Alongside this acquisition, Twitter also appointed him to the company’s board of directors, according to Verify. Musk acknowledged his seat on the board with an image of himself smoking weed from one of his famous appearances on The Joe Rogan Experience podcast, with the caption, “Twitter’s next board meeting is gonna be lit.”
Contrary to some internet claims, Musk is not a majority shareholder of the company, which would require that he owns at least 50 percent of the company’s stake, plus one share. If he was a majority shareholder, he would be able to have near-unilateral control of the company, such as single-handedly implementing his proposed edit button on the platform or restoring banned users. However, since he is the largest shareholder and a board member, he will no doubt have say in the company’s decisions in at least some capacity.
Earlier this week, Musk polled users to ask whether they think Twitter should have an edit button, with the majority of respondents saying they would like such a function implemented. An edit feature was later confirmed to be underway by the official Twitter Comms account. However, they said the feature had been in the works “since last year,” long before Musk acquired his 9.2 percent stake, and that they “didn’t get the idea from a poll.”
Regardless, Musk seemingly took credit for the forthcoming edit feature by sharing a meme that traces his entrepreneurial beginnings: it depicts Musk selling the software Zip2 to computer company Compaq for over $300 million in 1999, supposedly leading to the dominoes-effect consequence of the edit button being implemented on Twitter, years later.
According to documents filed by Twitter with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk agreed to cap his stake in the company at 14.9 percent while on the board, on which he agreed to serve a two-year term. The filing confirms Musk isn’t Twitter’s majority shareholder, nor will he be for at least the next couple of years.
Musk has been an outspoken critic of Twitter in recent weeks, questioning its free-speech integrity as a platform that he described as a “de facto public town square.”
With a net worth of $276 billion, Musk is the world’s richest man, according to Forbes.
