San Francisco Aug 17 (BUS): Elon Musk, the world’s richest person, wrote on Twitter that he was buying Manchester United Football Club, without providing any details.
Musk has a history of being funky and issuing irreverent tweets, and it wasn’t immediately clear if he was planning to pursue a deal to secure Manchester United.
“I’m buying Manchester United, you’re welcome,” Musk said on Twitter. The team is controlled by the American Glazer family. Neither the family nor Musk immediately responded to a request for comment.
Britain’s Daily Mirror reported last year that Glazers were willing to sell the club but only if they were offered more than 4 billion pounds ($4.84 billion), Reuters reported.
Musk is currently trying to exit a $44 billion deal to buy the social media company that took him to court.
Manchester United is one of the best supported football clubs in the world. They have won the England title 20 times, and won the European Cup three times, the most prestigious club competition in the world game.
Fans’ discontent with Glazer’s perceived lack of ambition was compounded by the club finishing sixth in the Premier League last season, while rivals Manchester City won their second successive title.
The football club’s market capitalization was $2.08 billion, as of the stock market close on Tuesday.
Manchester United fans have protested in recent years against Glazer, who bought the club for 790 million pounds ($955.51 million) in 2005 because of the team’s struggles on the field.
The anti-Glazer movement gained momentum last year after United were embroiled in a failed bid to form a breakaway European Super League.
Some fans have urged Musk to buy Manchester United rather than Twitter.
Musk has a history of unconventional actions and comments, which sometimes makes it hard to tell if he’s joking.
His ambitions range from colonizing Mars to creating a new sustainable energy economy, and in the process, he’s built the world’s most valuable car company, electric car maker Tesla, rocket company SpaceX, and a slew of smaller companies. One is a tunnel maker called The Boring Company.
Musk appeared to smoke marijuana on a podcast, and battled with US regulators over his comments about his plans for Tesla, including an abandoned attempt to make it private.
Forbes estimates his fortune at $270 billion.