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Twitter (TWTR) investor group tops Elon Musk as largest shareholder with 10.3% stake

The Vanguard Group was already invested in Twitter and recently increased its stake to 82.4 million shares, or 10.3 percent of the company.

TJ Denzer

April 14, 2022 3:40 PM

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Easily one of the biggest stories going this week has been Elon Musk’s interaction with the Twitter company. It’s been a whirlwind with Musk buying a substantial amount of shares in Twitter, teasing joining its board of directors, eventually changing his mind on joining the board, and now offering to buy Twitter outright for $43 billion. It would seem it has made other investors in Twitter nervous as well. Vanguard Group, one of the company’s other largest investors, increased its investment in the company, acquiring enough shares to constitute a 10.3% overall stake and making it the largest shareholder at Twitter.

Vanguard’s increased investment in Twitter was reported earlier today via the Wall Street Journal. According to the reports, Vanguard Group bought numerous further shares in Twitter, increasing its total ownership to 82.4 million shares altogether, or 10.3 percent of the company stock. That puts it ahead as the largest shareholder again, above Elon Musk’s stake which currently sits at a 9.2 percent stake in the company.

Elon’s cavalcade of activity this week likely has Twitter investors nervous about a takeover. It was earlier this week that Musk and Twitter announced he might join the board of directors, but it would seem some of the terms did not fit what Elon Musk would be trying to accomplish. Twitter ended up announcing soon after that Musk would not be joining the board after all. Then, today, Musk suddenly made an offer to buy Twitter outright for $43 billion. In addition, Musk was part of a TED Talk in which he stressed that he wanted to make Twitter a platform where free speech was protected. This apparently includes “open sourcing” the platform’s algorithm and taking the company private.

With all of this frenzied activity taking place so quickly, it’s currently expected that Twitter will resist Elon Musk’s efforts to purchase the company. It seems its investors are also trying to limit Musk’s control in the matter with Vanguard’s deeper investment. As this story continues to play out, stay tuned as we watch for further noteworthy developments.

TJ Denzer

Senior News Editor

TJ Denzer is a player and writer with a passion for games that has dominated a lifetime. He found his way to the Shacknews roster in late 2019 and has worked his way to Senior News Editor since. Between news coverage, he also aides notably in livestream projects like the indie game-focused Indie-licious, the Shacknews Stimulus Games, and the Shacknews Dump. You can reach him at tj.denzer@shacknews.com and also find him on Twitter @JohnnyChugs.