[Asia Economy Reporter Jeong Hyunjin] Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla, who declared the termination of his acquisition of the social networking service (SNS) Twitter and is preparing for legal litigation, tweeted on the 16th (local time) that he is now buying the English Premier League football team Manchester United.
On the same day, Musk posted on his Twitter, "Clearly, I support the left half of the Republican Party and the right half of the Democratic Party," a political statement, and then suddenly wrote, "I am buying Manchester United," followed by "ur welcome."
Foreign media evaluated that since Musk has often posted seemingly random tweets in the past, it is not certain from this tweet alone whether he is pursuing a deal to acquire Manchester United. Bloomberg News pointed out, "Musk claimed he would buy Manchester United in a thread joking about political leanings," adding, "Musk has a history of using Twitter to troll or joke with the media that follow him."
Representative examples include Musk mentioning the delisting of Tesla in 2018 on his Twitter and then retracting it, or last December when he said he was thinking of quitting his job to become an influencer and asked his followers for their opinions. The globally popular Manchester United club has a market capitalization of about $2.08 billion (approximately 2.7239 trillion KRW) as of the closing price on that day. The Manchester United club, operated by the Glazer family in the United States, did not immediately respond to Musk's remarks.
Musk's tweet came amid ongoing legal battles over the Twitter acquisition issue. Musk agreed to acquire Twitter for $44 billion (about 57.3 trillion KRW) at the end of April but unilaterally terminated the contract last month, claiming Twitter did not provide data related to fake accounts, and is currently in litigation.
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