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A court filing unmasked the 100 investors in Elon Musk's X: a Saudi prince, major VCs, Diddy, and Jack Dorsey

Aug 22, 2024, 14:20 IST
Business Insider
Elon Musk started buying shares in Twitter in January 2022NurPhoto
  • A judge ordered X Holdings to unseal its list of shareholders, revealing notable investors.
  • The list includes Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Sequoia, Saudi Prince Alwaleed, and Diddy.
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Elon Musk's X just had to give up the names of all its investors — and there are a couple of notable names on the list.

A federal judge ordered the social media platform to unseal the list of shareholders of X Holdings on Tuesday, after a journalism nonprofit filed a motion to view the records in July.

The document was first made public by The Washington Post.

The document includes some of Silicon Valley's biggest names like Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Sequoia, alongside asset managers including Fidelity. Wealthy individuals also invested, including Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud, American rapper Sean "Diddy" Combs, and X's founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey.

X did not immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment sent outside regular working hours.

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Musk bought X, the public company then known as Twitter, for $44 billion in late 2022. Musk also funded his purchase by borrowing from a list of banks including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, MUFG, BNP Paribas, Mizuho, and SocGen.

X first filed the list of investors as part of a lawsuit brought on by former Twitter employees last year. The employees alleged that Musk failed to pay them a certain amount of money after he took over the company.

Attorneys for the nonprofit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a motion in July asking the court to unseal the records, on behalf of independent technology journalist Jacob Silverman.

The nonprofit said that revealing the list of investors was in the public's best interest since X is an important platform for discourse.

Representatives of X disputed the motion, writing in a court document: "Individuals and entities investing and taking an ownership interest in a private corporation such as X Holdings expect that such information will remain private."

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Lawyers also said that the disclosure could undermine X's competitive position and give its prospective partners an unfair advantage.

X, which makes money from premium subscriptions and advertising, saw its advertising revenue plummet after Musk's takeover, with large advertisers among those who fled the platform after the company changed owners.

Musk also fired hordes of sales and safety staff and brought back previously-banned accounts.

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