‘I am not shopping for them’ Elon Musk says Man United declare was only a joke after followers go into meltdown

Elon Musk, the world’s richest particular person, has tweeted that he was joking when he mentioned that he was going to purchase English Premier League membership Manchester United.

“No, this can be a long-running joke on Twitter. I’m not shopping for any sports activities groups,” Musk mentioned, when requested by a person if he was critical about shopping for the membership.

About 4 hours earlier, Musk had tweeted: “I’m shopping for Manchester United ur (sic) welcome,” with out providing any particulars. Some Manchester United followers, disgruntled by their membership’s declining fortunes of late, had beforehand urged Musk on Twitter to contemplate shopping for the membership.

The tweet turnaround comes as Musk seeks to exit a $US44 billion settlement to purchase Twitter solely 4 months after asserting on the platform he would purchase the social media firm, which has taken him to courtroom.

Musk has a historical past of being unconventional and posting irreverent tweets, making it troublesome typically to inform when he’s joking.

“Subsequent I’m shopping for Coca-Cola to place the cocaine again in,” he tweeted on April 27, two days after Twitter’s board accepted his unsolicited provide to purchase the corporate.

Manchester United is likely one of the most well-known golf equipment in world soccer however is at the moment in disaster on the sphere amid indignant calls from followers for the present house owners, the American Glazer household, to drag out.

The northern England-based workforce has greater than 32 million followers on its important Twitter account and Musk’s first tweet concerning the membership had garnered almost 400,000 ‘likes’ on the platform inside 4 hours.

Musk’s tweets about potential acquisitions have landed him in sizzling water with US regulators up to now.

In 2018, he tweeted that there was “funding secured” for a $US72 billion deal to take Tesla non-public, however didn’t transfer forward with a proposal. Musk and Tesla every paid $US20 million civil fines – and Musk stepped down as Tesla’s chairman – to resolve US Securities and Change Fee (SEC) claims that Musk defrauded buyers.

The SEC didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon Musk’s tweet that he was shopping for the membership.

Musk’s ambitions vary from colonising Mars to creating a brand new sustainable power economic system, and within the course of he has constructed probably the most priceless automotive firm on this planet, electrical car maker Tesla, rocket firm SpaceX, and a slew of smaller corporations.

Predictably the response to the preliminary tweet was diverse.