Musk has a history of being unconventional and making irreverent tweets, and it was not immediately clear if he planned to go ahead with a deal to secure Manchester United.
I also buy Manchester United — Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 17, 2022 “I’m buying Manchester United, you’re welcome,” Musk tweeted. The team is controlled by the American Glazer family. Neither the family nor Musk immediately responded to a request for comment. British newspaper The Daily Mirror reported last year that the Glazers were ready to sell the club, but only if they were offered more than 4 billion pounds ($4.84 billion). Musk is currently trying to get out of a $44 billion deal to buy the social media company, which has landed him in court. Manchester United is one of the most supported football clubs in the world. They have been crowned champions of England a record 20 times and have won the European Cup, the world’s most prestigious club competition, three times. Resentment among fans at the Glazers’ perceived lack of ambition to bring in top players has intensified after the club finished sixth in the English Premier League last season while rivals Manchester City won a second consecutive title. The soccer club had a market capitalization of US$2.08 billion as of Tuesday’s close. Manchester United fans have in recent years protested against the Glazers, who bought the club for 790 million pounds ($955.51 million) in 2005, because of the team’s struggles on the pitch. The anti-Glazer movement gained momentum last year after United were involved in a failed bid to form a breakaway European Super League. Some fans urged Musk to buy Manchester United instead of Twitter. Musk has a history of unconventional actions and comments, which sometimes makes it difficult to tell when he’s joking. His ambitions range from colonizing Mars to creating a new sustainable energy economy, and in the process he has built the world’s most valuable car company, electric vehicle maker Tesla, rocket company SpaceX and a host of smaller companies. One is a tunnel builder called the Boring Company. Musk appeared to smoke marijuana in a podcast and battled US regulators over his comments about his plans for Tesla, including an abandoned attempt to hide it. Forbes estimates his fortune at $270 billion. (Reporting by Juby Babu in Bengaluru; Writing by Peter Henderson; Editing by Aditya Soni, Neil Fullick and Michael Perry)
