Elon Musk's decision to snap up a 9.2 percent stake in his favorite social media platform, Twitter, is already paying off after the company's share price soared more than 27% on the news Monday - making the already ultra-wealthy Musk an additional 1.2 billion, according to Bloomberg.
The March 14 acquisition, made public Monday in a Securities and Exchange Commission filing, makes Musk Twitter's largest shareholder - but questions remain about how much power the minority stake will give the Tesla CEO over Twitter's day-to-day decision making.
He has criticized the platform in the past for stifling free speech - and been admonished for his own Twitter posts by regulators.
Minority stake or not, some experts expect Musk to use his block of shares to influence the company towards a open model with fewer content moderation measures.
"Specifically, Musk could seek to influence the openness of the platform and how it controls content or push to invest in the subscription model more aggressively," Ali Mogharabi, an analyst for financial services firm Morningstar, said in an investors note on Monday.
Republican lawmakers are already praising Musk for for protecting 'free speech' following the news.
Rep. Lance Gooden (R-Texas), who co-founded the Freedom From Big Tech Caucus, lauded Musk but said his purchase was a warning about the social media giant's 'power.'
'The fact that the world’s richest man chose to outright buy Twitter rather than develop a new platform shows Twitter’s monopoly power,' Gooden told DailyMail.com.
'I’m glad Elon Musk is stepping up to protect free speech, but Congress must act to put the rest of big tech in their place.'
Numerous GOP lawmakers have accused Twitter of 'censorship' including 'shadow banning,' which supposedly restricts a user's reach without their knowledge or appearing to do so.
Full article on Daily Mail
