Kirsty Wigglesworth/PA
Elon Musk has been forced to release a list of shareholders who helped him buy Twitter, and it makes for some eye-opening reading.
After a federal court forced his hand, X Corp has disclosed a list of shareholders for its parent company, which includes entities linked to Sean “Diddy” Combs, Bill Ackman, Larry Ellison and Marc Andreessen.
The disclosure stems from a lawsuit filed by former Twitter employees accusing Musk of violating their arbitration agreements by failing to pay them certain fees after he bought the site.
It lists nearly 100 groups with a stake in the company, such as Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud, as well as his investment vehicle Kingdom Holding Company, and Twitter founder Jack Dorsey.
Petr Aven and Vadim Moshkovich are also among those listed, suggesting, as Guy Verhofstadt points out here, that Vladimir Putin’s henchmen could have been among those who helped Musk acquire Twitter.
Petr Aven is a Russian billionaire who founded Alfa Group, described by Denis Danilov as “one of the main wallets for Putin”, while Vadim Moshkovich is a sub-sanctioned Russian agrarian billionaire who was also part of Putin’s closest circle.
Posting on X, Danilov said: “Knowing all of this, how can there even be a discussion about Elon Musk’s bias?
“Everyone was thinking how is it possible that Twitter (X)’s stock is plummeting, advertisers are breaking contracts, and no one is doing anything about it. I mean, that’s a direct loss to investors.
“But what everyone overlooked was the fact that investors didn’t care about profits, they needed a platform to promote their narratives, such as: supporting Putin and Russia; lobbying to freeze the war in Ukraine; taking the Ukrainian agenda out of the top news; the righteousness of Hamas, etc.”
Alongside Verhofstadt, James O’Brien also highlighted X’s links to the Russian president, suggesting that there may be some weight to the above reports.
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