Elon Musk ‘secretly acquired’ Twitter stock before buying company, Morgan Stanley covered up: Report

Morgan Stanley banker offered Elon Musk and his business manager Jared Birchall regular updates on “trading strategies to avoid public detection”.

Elon Musk secretly acquired a major stake in Twitter in early 2022 before eventually buying the social media platform. The billionaire did so with the help of a Morgan Stanley banker who advised him on how to avoid alerting the broader market, news agency Reuters citing a shareholder lawsuit.

Elon Musk, CEO of SpaceX and Tesla and owner of X, formerly known as Twitter, gestures as he attends the Viva Technology conference on innovation and startups. (Reuters)

The banker, who remains unidentified, offered Elon Musk and his business manager Jared Birchall regular updates on “trading strategies to avoid public detection” and “‘Money Saved’ by hiding these trades from the market,” the lawsuit showed.

Additionally, Elon Musk also delayed disclosing his ownership of more than 5% of the social media company in order to artificially keep its share price down. Owing to this, Elon Musk was able to acquire more than 9% of Twitter without triggering a major stock price hike, according to the complaint.

Elon Musk ended acquired a multibillion-dollar stake in Twitter without the company knowing about it, the report added. He then quickly agreed to join Twitter’s board after going public with his investment, it added. In April 2022, Elon Musk decided to try and buy the company instead and later tried to renege on the purchase but was sued by Twitter. He later completed the acquisition in October 2022.

Elon Musk used Morgan Stanley for many of his business efforts over the years as Michael Grimes, a managing director at Morgan Stanley, was reported to be involved in the Twitter deal.