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[excerpt]
[who really owns X]
Elon Musk’s X reveals investors in court filing
SAN FRANCISCO — A federal judge on Tuesday ordered Elon Musk’s X to unseal the list of shareholders involved with X Holdings Corp., giving the public an official look at the investors who aided his $44 billion purchase of the social media platform previously known as Twitter in October 2022.
Shareholders named in the document include some of Silicon Valley’s most prominent venture capitalists and entrepreneurs — as well as a fund linked with hip-hop mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs.
The filing lists nearly 100 entities with a stake in X, although many appear to represent different funds controlled by the same firm or person. Other investors include venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud; Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey; and 8VC, a venture capital firm co-founded by Joe Lonsdale, co-founder of intelligence contractor and data analysis platform Palantir.
Lesser-known shareholders listed in the filing include UnipolSai S.P.A., an Italian financial services company based in Bologna. Many of the larger investors had previously been reported, but X had not publicly detailed its stakeholders before. X did not immediately return a request for comment.
X originally filed the list of investors under seal as part of a lawsuit brought in 2023 by former Twitter employees who alleged that the entrepreneur violated their arbitration agreements by failing to pay them certain fees after he bought the company. Attorneys for the nonprofit Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a motion in July asking the court to unseal the records, on behalf of independent technology journalist Jacob Silverman.
On Tuesday, U.S. District Judge Susan Illston granted Silverman’s motion to unseal the filing and ordered X to file an unredacted copy on the docket. The Washington Post downloaded an unredacted version of the filing from the court website on Wednesday. It’s not clear when it was made available to the public.
Katie Townsend, legal director for the Reporters Committee, said in a statement that the court’s ruling vindicates “the interest of the general public in knowing who owns X.” In an earlier blog post after the motion requesting the records be unsealed was filed, Silverman wrote that “people have a right to know who owns a company with such a prominent role in shaping public discourse, both in the United States and around the world.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2024/08/21/elon-musk-x-investors/