Elon Musk, founder of Tesla and SpaceX and currently the world's richest man, has fired back against a Saudi Arabian Twitter shareholder over their opposition to Musk purchasing more of the social media giant.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is said to be one of Twitter's largest shareholders and had said he would reject Musk's attempt to take the company private. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal is the cousin of current Saudi Arabian supreme leader Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
Bin Talal said in a statement:
"Being one of the largest and long-term shareholders of Twitter, Kingdom Holding Company and I reject this offer. I don't believe that the proposed offer by @elonmusk ($54.20) comes close to the intrinsic value of @Twitter given its growth prospects."
In a tweet, Musk shot back:
"Interesting. Just two questions, if I may. How much of Twitter does the Kingdom own, directly and indirectly? What are the Kingdom's views on journalistic freedom of speech?"
Saudi Arabia has one of the strongest censorship laws in the world and has been accused of vast human rights abuses in the country and abroad, including, according to the CIA, the murder of Saudi journalist Jamal Ahmad Khashoggi who was murdered and cut into pieces in the Saudi Arabian embassy in Turkey in 2018.
Speaking at the TED2022 Conference in Vancouver, Musk defended his goal of purchasing Twitter, saying:
"This is not about the economics. My strong intuitive sense is having a public platform that is maximally trusted and broadly inclusive is important to the future of civilization. The civilizational risk is decreased the more we can increase the trust of Twitter as a public platform. Twitter has become kind of the de facto town square, so it's really important that people have both the reality and perception that they are able to speak freely, in the bounds of the law."
Many citizens fear that having the world's richest man in effect controlling one of the world's biggest social media sites would give him unjust influence over world affairs and over politics, both in the United States and abroad.
Musk's use of Twitter has itself been controversial, including an apparent call for the overthrow of the democratically elected government of Bolivia, from which Tesla sources much of their Lithium for their electric cars.
[Based on reporting by: The Daily Mail]
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