'Big Short' investor Michael Burry trumpets Elon Musk's Twitter stake — and hints he supports the Tesla chief's push for free speech
- Michael Burry seemed to welcome Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter stock in a tweet this week.
- "The Big Short" investor has bet against Tesla stock and butted heads with Musk in the past.
Michael Burry, the fund manager of "The Big Short" fame, appeared to welcome Tesla CEO Elon Musk's purchase of a 9.2% stake in Twitter this week.
"Of course @elonmusk buying enough shares to control Twitter would be good for America," Burry said in a now-deleted tweet. "Period."
The Scion Asset Management chief shared a link to a Boston Herald editorial, which criticized The New York Times and The Washington Post for initially dismissing the controversy around Hunter Biden in the fall of 2020.
The editorial noted that both newspapers have published stories in recent weeks about President Joe Biden's son and his dealings with energy companies in China and Ukraine. In October 2020, the New York Post first reported on the emails, which apparently showed Hunter Biden was paid millions of dollars for months of work, and had leveraged his father's public stature for his personal gain.
Scion and The White House didn't immediately respond to requests for comment from Insider.
Facebook and Twitter limited sharing of the Hunter Biden story, citing their rules around distribution of disputed information and hacked material respectively.
Twitter also permanently suspended President Donald Trump's account shortly after the attack on the US Capitol in early January 2021, citing the risk of further incitement of violence. Meanwhile, Facebook decided last June to ban the president from posting for two years.
Burry has previously blasted the mainstream media for ignoring the Hunter Biden story, and bristled when Trump was booted off Twitter. He may be hoping that Musk — who recently questioned whether Twitter does enough to defend free speech — will agitate for banned accounts to be reinstated, and push for looser restrictions on what users can post.
The Scion boss is best known for predicting the mid-2000s housing crash, and paving the way for the GameStop stock boom in January 2021.
His ostensible vote of confidence in Musk is somewhat surprising, as he's ridiculed Tesla's valuation and bet on its stock to plummet in recent years. Moreover, he accused Musk of selling Tesla shares last year to realize some profits and cover his personal debts, not to pay more taxes, as the billionaire had claimed.
"Burry is a broken clock," Musk fired back at the time.
It's possible that Burry was being sarcastic in his tweet about Musk's control of Twitter being a good thing, given his skepticism of Big Tech and his past attacks on the Tesla CEO and his company. However, the investor's complaints about the banning of Trump and the media coverage of the Hunter Biden saga could mean he sees Musk's involvement as a positive development in this case.
Burry deactivated his Twitter account after clashing with Musk in November. He marked his return to the platform in March by posting a picture of himself from 1977. Burry was likely drawing a parallel between the soaring inflation, slowing growth, surging energy prices, and international conflicts of the 1970s, and the current state of the world.
In another tweet this week, Burry seemed to cast doubt on whether the Federal Reserve can rein in rising prices without crashing markets or pulling the US economy into recession. "Not sure even the Fed can dam that river," he said.