Newly unsealed documents have revealed that Sean “Diddy” Combs was among the high-profile investors who helped Elon Musk acquire Twitter, now rebranded as X, for $44 billion in 2022.
The disclosure was made public after a U.S. District Court ruling forced the company to release a full list of its shareholders, offering a rare look into who co-owns the social media giant.
The court filings list nearly 100 entities as co-owners of X, including major figures such as billionaire Bill Ackman, Saudi Prince Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, and Twitter’s co-founder Jack Dorsey.
Sean Combs made the investment through his company, Sean Combs Capital, LLC. This marks the first time the complete list of co-owners has been available to the public since Musk took Twitter private.
While Diddy and Musk have been spotted together in the past, including at a Dave Chappelle comedy show in 2022, this investment was previously unknown. Diddy’s involvement places him alongside a wide array of investors, from Saudi conglomerates to cryptocurrency firms like Binance.
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Transparency Push Leads to Shareholder Disclosure
Journalist Jacob Silverman filed a motion demanding transparency, citing public interest, which led to the unsealing of the list of investors.
This disclosure is part of a legal battle in which former Twitter employees allege that the company violated their arbitration agreements by failing to pay certain fees after Musk’s takeover.
Initially, X’s lawyers sought to keep the shareholder list sealed. However, U.S. District Judge ruled in favor of making the list public, arguing that there was a strong presumption toward public access to court records, especially in this case.
The federal court in San Francisco requires parties to disclose any entities with financial interests in a lawsuit, leading to the eventual release of the shareholder list.
The Evolution of X’s Ownership
The unsealing of the shareholder list revealed that many of X’s co-owners had held shares in the company when it was still publicly traded as Twitter. Some investors, like Jack Dorsey, maintained their stakes even after the transition to private ownership.
New stakeholders, including figures from Musk’s other ventures such as Tesla and The Boring Company, were also revealed to be part of the ownership group.
Interestingly, the list of 95 co-owners is significantly larger than the 18 investors named in a securities filing in May 2022 when Musk was finalizing the purchase. This suggests that additional investors joined after the initial deal or that existing Twitter shareholders opted to retain their stakes post-acquisition.
Financial and operational turmoil under Musk
Since Musk took control, X has faced a series of challenges. Fidelity Investments, one of the co-owners with multiple investment vehicles involved, recently reported that the company’s value has dropped by approximately 71% since the acquisition.
Operationally, X has drawn criticism for becoming a hub for extremist groups, with many large advertisers pulling out over concerns about the platform’s safety and content moderation policies. Despite these struggles, Musk’s ownership group remains a diverse and high-profile collection of investors from various sectors, including venture capital firms, media agencies, and technology companies.