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Tesla Inc. Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk is now Twitter Inc.’s largest shareholder, according to a regulatory filing published on Monday.

A 13G filing submitted to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission has revealed that Musk (pictured) purchased 73,486,938 shares of Twitter on March 14. The shares represent a 9.2% stake in the company. Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey reportedly holds a 2.25% stake.

According to CNBC, Musk’s Twitter shares were worth $2.89 billion at the company’s Friday closing price. Twitter’s share price has increased significantly since: The stock jumped more than 25% this morning on the news of Musk’s investment.

Update: Twitter announced via a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission that became public Tuesday that Musk is also joining the company’s board. Twitter’s stock was rising almost 4% in morning trading while most other tech stocks were falling.

Twitter co-founder, former CEO and outgoing board member Jack Dorsey tweeted Tuesday that he welcomes Musk to the board. “I’m really happy Elon is joining the Twitter board! He cares deeply about our world and Twitter’s role in it. Parag [Agrawal, Twitter’s CEO] and Elon both lead with their hearts, and they will be an incredible team.”

For his part, Musk tweeted, “Looking forward to working with Parag & Twitter board to make significant improvements to Twitter in coming month.”

Musk, who is now reported to be Twitter’s largest shareholder, appears to have hinted at the stock purchase in a series of tweets posted on March 25. The tweets were posted less than two weeks after the Tesla CEO purchased the 9.2% stake in Twitter on March 14.

On March 26, Musk tweeted that he was giving “serious thought” to creating a new social media platform. 

Musk’s Twitter stock is reportedly classified as a passive stake, a type of investment wherein the shareholder takes no active part in running a company. However, financial analysts have raised the possibility that Musk could eventually opt to take a more active role.

In 2018, the SEC sued Musk over a tweet in which the Tesla CEO stated that he had secured funding to take the publicly traded automaker private. Musk settled the lawsuit a few months later, agreeing to only post tweets related to Tesla after receiving approval from the automaker’s legal department. The executive also stepped down as the chair of Tesla’s board and agreed to pay a $20 million fine to Tesla investors.

In the years since, Musk’s tweets have continued to be closely watched by investors. Last November, shares of Tesla jumped more than 8% in one day after Hertz Corp. announced plans to buy 100,000 of the automaker’s electric vehicles. Shortly thereafter, Tesla’s shares tumbled almost 4% in response Musk tweeting that a deal had not yet been signed.

Earlier, in January 2021, a tweet from Musk about GameStop Corp. led shares of the video game retailer to jump more than 60%. The Tesla CEO’s tweets also contributed to increases in the price of cryptocurrencies, as well as the shares of multiple blockchain and firms and videogame development companies. 

Photo: Jurvetson/Flickr