“I’m also buying Manchester United. You’re welcome.” With this succinct tweet Tesla-Boss Elon Musk (51) once again a lot of excitement Twitter caused. On Wednesday night, the richest man in the world announced that he would buy the English football club – after previously joking that he politically supported the left half of the Republicans and the right half of the Democrats. In the first hour and a half, Musk received more than 180,000 likes for his tweet. Then he backtracked: “No, that’s a recurring joke on Twitter. I don’t buy a sports team.”
Musk is known for making unconventional and sometimes disrespectful tweets, often making it unclear if he’s joking. For example, shortly after bidding on Twitter, he wrote, “Next, I’m buying Coca-Cola to put cocaine back in.”
His tweets have already led to investigations by the US Securities and Exchange Commission. In 2018, for example, he tweeted that he wanted to take the electric car manufacturer Tesla, which he manages, from the stock market for $72 billion. He never made an offer and, like Tesla, ultimately had to pay a civil fine in the millions. The SEC could not immediately be reached for comment regarding the ManU tweet.
Musk is currently in court trying to get a back out of the $44 billion takeover of short messaging service Twitter just four months after the announcement.