Tesla CEO and founder of SpaceX Elon Musk has taken a 9.2% stake in Twitter Inc., per Bloomberg.
According to an SEC filing, Musk has purchased 73,486,938 shares of common stock. With TWTR trading at $39.31 at Friday’s close, this brings the total purchase to more than $2.8 billion.
As for the price of Twitter’s stock, it has already jumped more than 26% before markets opened.
Elsewhere in the crypto world, the price of Dogecoin, one of Musk’s favorite cryptocurrencies, appears to be benefiting from the news of Musk’s newfound Twitter stake.
In the last 24 hours, Dogecoin has surged by almost 9%, and currently stands at $0.153.
Musk bought the Twitter stake hot off the heels of a survey he conducted about Twitter’s adherence—or lack of adherence—to free speech.
“Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?” Musk’s Twitter survey asked.
Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy.
Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) March 25, 2022
Over 2 million Twitter users responded, of which 70% believed Twitter did not adhere to the principle of free speech.
Musk, Twitter, and social media
The Tesla CEO’s purchase of a stake in Twitter comes as the social media platform is exploring the possibilities of decentralization.
In November last year, Twitter announced a new, dedicated crypto team whose chief responsibility is to explore possibilities in the decentralized apps (dapps) space.
Twitter Crypto is led by Tess Rinearson, who Twitter said at the time was tasked with setting “strategy for the future of crypto at (and on) Twitter.”
The team is also tasked with exploring ways to incorporate decentralized technologies into Twitter infrastructure itself.
Crypto enthusiasts have also been calling for a move towards decentralized social media platforms.
In November 2021, Solana co-founder Raj Gokal said he needed to be “freed from centralized social media,” as he announced a $100 million initiative for Web3 social media technology alongside Reddit’s co-founder Alexis Ohanian.
In December last year, a thought experiment penned by Orange Paper suggested that if the invention of Bitcoin had preceded that of Twitter, the technology that underpins the flagship cryptocurrency would have caused Twitter’s evolution to go down a path of decentralization from much earlier in its lifespan.