Elon Musk took
Twitter private in 2022, but he didn’t do it alone: the deal was backed by his wealthy allies in
Silicon Valley, embattled hip-hop mogul
Sean “Diddy” Combs, and holding companies based in Saudi Arabia and Qatar, according to a court document ordered unsealed by federal judge on Tuesday, which were first seen by the public late Wednesday night.
The
list of shareholders was made public thanks to a
motion filed by nonprofit group the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press on behalf of independent tech journalist Jacob Silverman, who has
argued that the public deserves to know “who owns an important site for public discourse and whether its free-speech fundamentalist majority shareholder is doing business with censorious dictatorships.” Musk’s company, now branded X Corp., had until Sept. 4 to comply with U.S. District Judge Susan Illston’s order to disclose the investors.
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