Who Owns X (Formerly Twitter)?

Social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, was a publicly traded company until late 2022. While the company was taken private by billionaire Tesla (TSLA -0.82%) CEO Elon Musk for $44 billion, the question of "who owns X?" has a more complicated answer since Musk had several investors involved in the deal.

In this article, we'll discuss the current ownership structure of X, other important governance information you need to know, and how you might be able to invest in X even though the company is no longer publicly traded.

Just a few weeks later, Musk made an unsolicited $44 billion offer to buy the company, which Twitter's board of directors initially rejected but later decided was in the best interests of Twitter shareholders.

The road to getting the deal closed wasn't a smooth one. Musk tried to get out of the deal in July when he alleged that Twitter's management was in breach of their agreement by failing to crack down on spam and bot accounts. According to Musk, the accounts made the platform's active user base look far greater than it actually was. He eventually offered to close the deal at a lower price than initially agreed, but management refused and sued Musk.

Before the trial was scheduled to begin, Musk decided to move forward with the deal as initially agreed. In October 2022, Musk officially acquired Twitter for $44 billion.

Musk sold about $15 billion of his Tesla stock to fund the purchase and secured $13 billion in financing from several banks. He also raised capital from a few outside investors and convinced some of Twitter's largest public shareholders to roll their shares into the new private company.

X ownership structure today

When it comes to ownership structure, it's important to realize that Musk isn't the only owner of X. For one thing, since going private, X has offered stock to employees and has granted restricted stock units (RSUs), as well. So, there are a lot of "owners." But we'll focus on those who own a substantial amount of X shares.

At the time of Musk's takeover of the company, he had several other investors who received equity stakes. According to a 2024 court filing, there were almost 100 other investors who helped take the company private. After Musk, the largest shareholder of X is Kingdom Holding Company, controlled by Saudi prince and billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal, who rolled over $1.89 billion in former Twitter shares at the time of the deal.

Other notable investors include:

• Oracle (ORCL -0.80%) co-founder Larry Ellison.
• Cryptocurrency exchange Binance (BNB +1.64%), which confirmed a $500 million investment.
• Venture capital firms Andreessen Horowitz and Sequoia Capital.
• Sovereign wealth fund Qatar Holding.
• Twitter co-founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey retained a $1 billion stake in the social media platform after Musk took Twitter private.
• Fidelity invested $300 million at the time of the acquisition.

Another way is to go through a third-party marketplace, such as UpMarket, that facilitates purchases of the stocks of privately held companies. These platforms might offer funds that invest in a portfolio of companies, including X, or might let you buy shares of X individually. To use this method, you'll need to be an accredited investor, which generally means having a net worth of at least $1 million, excluding your primary residence, or an annual income of $200,000 or more ($300,000 for couples).

Investing in X competitors

An alternative would be to invest in some of the publicly traded social media companies.

Meta Platforms (META +0.03%) is the most prominent example. The Facebook and Instagram parent company had a roughly $1.6 trillion valuation as of January 2025 and billions of active users worldwide. However, Meta isn't a pure social media business, with its Reality Labs division developing metaverse-related hardware and software products.

Related investing topics

Pinterest (PINS -2.30%) is another publicly traded social media platform with more than 400 million active users. Pinterest is a somewhat different type of social media platform than Meta or X. It focuses on sharing and finding ideas rather than keeping up with individuals.

There are a few others. Snap (SNAP -1.02%), the parent company of Snapchat, is publicly traded. There's also the neighborhood-focused social media platform Nextdoor (NYSE:KIND).