If Mr. Musk is pushing for change on Twitter, he wouldn’t be the first excited investor the company has dealt with in recent years. Activist firm Elliott Management took a position on Twitter, calling for Mr. Dorsey’s removal in 2020. It later struck a deal with Twitter that included a $1 billion investment from private equity firm Silver Lake and took on new board members, including Silver Lake’s co-CEO Egon Durban. Silver Lake worked with Mr. Musk in his attempts to take Tesla private
Musk’s list of other business ventures is long: In addition to Tesla, he is chief executive of the rocket company SpaceX and founder of The Boring Company, a tunnel-building services company. Adding another role to the list could annoy Tesla shareholders. In the last two months of last year, Mr. Musk sold about $16 billion worth of Tesla stock, equivalent to about 10 percent of his stake in the electric vehicle company.
Tesla has defied the supply chain issues that have weighed down most traditional automakers, contributing to Mr Musk’s wealth and influence in the technology and auto industries. Tesla nearly doubled sales last year, approaching one million vehicles sold. On Saturday, Tesla said it sold 310,000 cars in the first three months of 2022, a 70 percent increase from the same period a year earlier — gains that contrast with the steep declines reported last week by General Motors and Toyota Motor. .
Tesla’s steadily expanding manufacturing network, including new plants in Austin, Texas and near Berlin, positions the company against automakers such as BMW and Mercedes-Benz in terms of vehicle sales. Despite a slew of new battery-powered models from Ford Motor, Kia and others, Tesla continues to dominate the electric car market, the industry’s fastest growing segment.
Still, executives who have interspersed media projects with other private endeavors have sometimes fallen into the crosshairs of policymakers. For example, former President Donald J. Trump had a vague view of Amazon because he disagreed with the coverage in The Washington Post, which Jeff Bezos bought in 2013. Tesla is a major beneficiary of environmental credit, while SpaceX pursues government contracts.
Regardless of the potential backlash, Mr. Musk can benefit from the investment. The document detailing Mr Musk’s stake said it was worth about $3 billion at Friday’s closing price. Dated March 14, Twitter’s stock has jumped about 50 percent since then.
Jack Ewing and Peter Eavis reporting contributed.
