Tesla CEO Elon Musk looks on as he visits the construction site of Tesla’s Gigafactory in Gruenheide near Berlin, Germany, May 17, 2021. Portal/Michele Tantussi/
Aug 16 (Portal) – Tesla (TSLA.O) chief executive officer Elon Musk said Tuesday he was buying football club Manchester United Plc (MANU.N).
Musk, the world’s richest person, has made disrespectful tweets in the past, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he planned on pursuing a deal.
“I’m buying Manchester United, welcome,” Musk said in a tweet.
Manchester United is one of the best supported football clubs in the world. They have been England champions a record 20 times and won the European Cup, the most prestigious club competition in global football, three times.
The team is controlled by America’s Glazer family, which did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The football club had a market capitalization of $2.08 billion at the close on Tuesday.
Manchester United fans have protested in recent years at the Glazers, who bought the club for £790m ($955.51m) in 2005 over the team’s struggles on the pitch.
The anti-glazer movement gained momentum last year after United were embroiled in a failed attempt to set up a breakaway European Super League.
Some fans have urged Musk to buy Manchester United instead of buying Twitter. Musk is trying to end a $44 billion deal to buy the social media company, which has landed him in court. ($1 = 0.8268 pounds)
Reporting by Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Edited by Aditya Soni and Neil Fullick
Our standards: The Trust Principles.