According to an announcement released by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Tesla CEO Elon Musk has held nearly 9.2% of the shares of the social media platform Twitter and has become the single largest shareholder of the platform. And at the same time that Musk announced the information, he also asked his fans on social platforms "if they need an edit button."
In fact, musk has not publicly stated his intention to manage or own Twitter since the document was released, and has not responded to requests from relevant media outlets to respond. However, at the end of March, when netizens raised the question of "whether they will consider establishing a new social media platform", Musk publicly said that he was "seriously considering this".
Cathy Wood, founder of Ark Investment Management, speculates that Musk's stake in Twitter could reshuffle the company's management. And Cathy Wood said in an interview that Musk had sent a "strong signal" to Twitter's current CEO Parag Agrawal, and Parag Agrawal also recently forwarded Musk's tweet "whether he wants to edit the button".
Previously, on March 14, Musk increased his holdings of 73.487 million shares of Twitter's common stock, but these shares are passive investments (passive investment refers to investment but not participation in the company's operations). However, according to the SEC requirements, anyone who acquires more than 5% of the common stock of a company must disclose its shareholding within 10 days. However, Musk only signed the filing on April 4, nearly 21 days after the original filing date of March 14, but the previous SEC penalty for disclosure was usually about $100,000.
In fact, Musk and the SEC have been tit-for-tat for a long time. Back in 2018, the SEC had accused Musk of making "false and misleading" statements to investors via Twitter in August 2018. Musk had said at the time that he was considering taking Tesla private and secured funding at $420 a share, but in the weeks since, his company's stock price has been volatile (not trading as previously suggested). Musk and Tesla then agreed to reach a settlement, in addition to paying a $20 million fine to the SEC, Musk also temporarily resigned as chairman of the company's board of directors.
And then in June 2020, the SEC again pointed out that Musk violated certain terms of the previous agreement, which required the CEO to obtain prior approval when disclosing relevant information that may affect the stock price in his speech on the social platform, but Musk did not comply with this clause. In addition, earlier this year, the SEC conducted an informal survey of Musk and Tesla and asked whether they should sell a 10% stake in Tesla.
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