Musk has been buying X shares near initial purchase price

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Elon Musk invested US$150 million to acquire more shares in X last year at a valuation approaching the price he paid for the company’s equity in 2022.

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Musk, who’s the majority shareholder of the company, has also “expressed willingness” to buy more minority stakes at the same valuation, according to Kingdom Holding Co.’s 2024 annual report. The Saudi investment firm has been a shareholder of X since 2011, when it was still known as Twitter.

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The report didn’t reference Musk or X by name, but a person with knowledge of the investment, who asked not to be named discussing private information, confirmed the report was referring to X.

Kingdom stated that the majority shareholder of “a privately held social media services company” recently invested at a transaction price equal to the carrying value of the investment on Kingdom’s balance sheet. As of Dec. 31, the firm valued its investment in X at 985 million riyals (US$262.7 million), implying a net valuation for all of X of about US$29.2 billion — close to what Musk and other investors paid for Twitter’s equity in October 2022. The company also had US$13 billion in debt.

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Musk, the world’s richest person with a net worth of US$311.9 billion, owned almost 74 per cent of X as of October 2023, according to an ownership chart submitted to state regulators in Nebraska. The transaction last year hasn’t previously been reported.

Kingdom, along with its founder Prince Alwaleed bin Talal Al Saud, is among X’s largest minority shareholders.

Musk and Kingdom Holding didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

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X’s business has struggled for much of Musk’s tenure as owner. Many advertisers fled the service, or paused their spending, shortly after his takeover for fear that their sponsored messages may appear alongside inappropriate content. Fidelity Investments had marked down X’s value by 68 per cent as of January.

Musk has since gone to war with marketers to try and bring them back. The company is suing several major brands, alleging that their decision to withhold advertising spending from the social network amounts to anti-competitive behaviour.

Some advertisers have started to return, though the threat of legal action has been a topic of conversation among those in the advertising industry, Bloomberg News has reported. Musk’s powerful role within the Trump administration has also been a factor for some marketers.

X’s business has rebounded since President Donald Trump was re-elected. Bankers holding debt from Musk’s initial purchase were finally able to sell it after years of waiting. X is also in discussions to raise more venture funding at a valuation on par with the 2022 purchase price, Bloomberg News has reported. That money would go toward new product ventures, but also toward paying off some of the company’s debt, which has carried more than US$1 billion in interest per year.

—With assistance from Tom Maloney.

Bloomberg.com

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