Elon Musk has taken a 9.2% stake in Twitter, according to a U.S. securities filing.
The news sent Twitter shares soaring about 25% in pre-market trading, the BBC reports.
The Tesla founder bought 73,486,938 Twitter shares on March 14, according to the Securities and Exchange Commission. The stake is worth $2.89 billion, based on Twitter’s closing price on Friday.
The stake makes him one of the largest shareholders in the company and is more than four times the 2.25% holding of Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.
Musk is a regular Twitter user with more than 80 million followers, although recently he said he is giving “serious thought” to building a new social media platform.
Late last month, Musk asked his followers whether they thought the social media platform encouraged free speech.
“Free speech is essential to a functioning democracy. Do you believe Twitter rigorously adheres to this principle?”
He then asked: “Is a new platform needed?”
Musk uses Twitter to share updates from the companies he owns – including SpaceX and Neuralink. He is also known for sharing memes, adding to his popularity among fans.
Some posts have drawn controversy. Last year he tweeted in response to a claim, made by the head of the UN World Food Program (WFP), that just 2% of Musk’s wealth could help to solve world hunger.
In October, Musk said he would sell $6 billion in Tesla stock and donate it to the WFP, provided it could describe “exactly how $6 billion will solve world hunger.”
Musk saw the valuation of his Tesla car company surpass a market value of $1 trillion last autumn, making it the fifth firm to reach the milestone, after Apple, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google-owner Alphabet.
