Diddy, a Saudi prince, Larry Ellison, and more newly revealed investors in Elon Musk's X
Thanks to newly-unsealed documents, we now know every shareholder who has backed Elon Musk’s X Corp, formerly known as Twitter.
A federal judge on Tuesday ordered X to unseal its list of shareholders, which was made public on Wednesday and first reported by The Washington Post. The filing lists almost 100 entities, several of which are controlled by the same firm or individual, including a litany of venture capital funds with ties to Musk and his allies.
The new look at X’s backing comes as The Wall Street Journal reports that the $13 billion Musk borrowed for his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter has turned into the worst merger-finance deal for banks since the 2008-2009 financial crisis.
Due to X’s weak financial performance, the banks haven’t been able to offload their debt without taking a major loss. Much of X’s revenue comes from advertising, which came in at just shy of $744 million over the fist six months of 2024, a 24% decrease compared to the same time last year, according to ad-tracking firm MediaRader.
The social media company’s struggles under Musk’s leadership may mean that investors’ stakes have lost some of their value. Here are 11 of those shareholders, from a Saudi Arabian prince and disgraced rapper Sean “Diddy” Combs to titans of Silicon Valley.
Andreessen Horowitz
A16z, or Andreessen Horowitz, is a major venture capital fund that has been investing in startups for more than a decade. The firm was started by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz in 2009 and has gone on to invest in companies like Airbnb, Anduril, OpenAI, and Doordash.
The fund recently was among the firms included in a $6 billion fundraising round for Musk’s xAi, his second artificial intelligence startup. He had helped fund and found OpenAI alongside Sam Altman, but later cut ties. Both Andreessen and Horowitz recently said they would support Former President Donald Trump’s presidential bid, joining Musk and several others in Silicon Valley.
Jack Dorsey
Jack Dorsey rolled over his investment in Twitter to X after Musk’s takeover, and put about $1 billion into the company, according to The Washington Post. The Square founder and “Block Head” was one of the major players who encouraged Musk to acquire Twitter, a company he stepped back from shortly after the purchase was approved in 2022. In May, Dorsey left the board of X rival Bluesky — which he helped create — and called X “freedom technology.”
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud
Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud is another shareholder who had been previously known. In 2022, he agreed to convert his almost $2 billion Twitter shares into a stake in the company when Musk took it private. He also participated in xAI’s recent $6 billion fundraise as Saudi Arabia works with U.S. financiers, including Andreessen Horowitz, to invest $40 billion in AI technology.
The Kingdom Holding Co. is also listed as both an X and xAI investor. The Saudi prince is also the conglomerate’s chairman and founder.
Bill Ackman/Pershing Square Foundation
Anyone who tuned into the controversies surrounding how elite colleges handled protests over the Hamas-Israel war and antisemitism has probably heard of Bill Ackman, the chief executive of Pershing Square Capital Management. Ackman’s already-high profile has grown since he declared war on university presidents and pushed back against reports that his wife, Neri Oxman, committed plagiarism, often through the form of very long tweets.
Ackman is a minority investor through his and Oxman’s Pershing Square Foundation. The Financial Times has reported that Ackman believes he can take X public using his Pershing Square SPARC Holdings. Although that might be a tough sell after Pershing Square scrapped its plans for an initial public offering
Sean “Diddy” Combs
Unlike many of the investors noted in X’s court filing, Sean “Diddy” Combs is not a major tech executive or entrenched venture capitalist. Still, the rapper and producer, who is being sued by a member of a drug cartel and facing sexual assault and sex trafficking accusations, is listed as an X investor through his LLC, Sean Combs Capital.
During a call with advertisers shortly after Musk purchased Twitter, he told Detavio Samuels — the CEO of Revolt, a company founded by Diddy that later cut ties with him — that “Puff is an investor in Twitter” and “he’s a good friend” that he texts with frequently, according to New York Times journalist Ryan Mac. Mac cited a passage in “Character Limit,” a book written by him and fellow Times’ tech reporter Kate Conger, scheduled for a Sept. 17 release.
In January, Diddy settled with Diageo after the singer accused the brand of racism. Several companies have distanced themselves from Diddy and his projects, some of which — including a planned show on Hulu — have been scrapped.
Joe Lonsdale/8VC
Joe Lonsdale is another investor in X, which isn’t too surprising given his ties to Elon Musk. Lonsdale, who interned at PayPal, has ties to members of the so-called PayPal Mafia, a group of founders including investor Peter Thiel and Musk. Lonsdale later became a protege to Thiel and helped co-found Palantir.
8VC, a venture capital fund Lonsdale helped found, has invested in Musk’s The Boring Company, according to its portfolio. The unsealed court filing also showed that 8VC is an investor in X.
Lonsdale is also a backer of Musk’s America PAC, a super political action committee that was founded and funded by many of the Tesla CEO’s allies. Lonsdale is leading the group and has been described as a political confidant to Musk, The New York Times reported in June.
Scott Nolan
Scott Nolan’s connections to Elon Musk run fairly deep; He’s a partner at the Founders Fund, a venture capital firm founded by Peter Thiel, and helped develop the original propulsion systems for SpaceX’s Falcon rockets.
The fund’s portfolio includes a number of companies linked to Musk. It’s invested in SpaceX, Neuralink, and The Boring Company. The fund has also invested in Airbnb, a firm co-founded by Tesla board member Joe Gebbia in 2008.
Larry Ellison
Larry Ellison, co-founder and chief technology officer of Oracle, is another known investor in X. He and Musk apparently consider each other friends and, in 2022, he reportedly texted Musk, “Elon, … I do think we need another Twitter.” The billionaire later pledged $1 billion to Musk’s eventual acquisition.
Fidelity
Through almost 30 funds, Fidelity Investments is another big investor in X. The firm’s funds have been a key aid in helping outside observers eye X’s value since Elon Musk purchased Twitter in 2022.
In March, Fortune reported that Fidelity’s Blue Chip Growth Fund had slashed its position in X by 5.7% a month earlier, implying that X’s value had declined by 73% since Musk’s acquisition. At the time, the position was valued at $5.28 million. When the deal was first made, Fidelity’s overall stake in the company was $19.66 million.
Gigafund/Luke Nosek and Stephen Oskoui
The venture capital firm Gigafund — led by co-founders and managing partners Stephen Oskoui and Luke Nosek — is another newly-revealed investor in X.
Nosek was the first venture capital investor to back SpaceX and is one of the handful of members of the firm’s board of directors. He was also a co-founder of PayPal, alongside Peter Thiel, Ken Howery, and Max Levchin. Nosek, Thiel, and Howery later started The Founders Fund, which Thiel still leads.
Gigafund has poured more than $1 billion into SpaceX since 2017, according to the fund. It’s also invested into Musk’s The Boring Company and Neuralink.
DFJ Growth
DFJ Growth is another big investor in X. The fund takes its full name, Draper Fisher Jurvetson, from its three founders — Tim Draper, John Fisher, and Steve Jurvetson. Of the three, only Fisher remains at the company, where he is a partner.
Like several other X investors, DJF Growth has invested in a series of companies linked to Elon Musk and allies like Peter Thiel. That includes Anduril, Neuralink, SolarCity, SpaceX, Tesla, The Boring Company, and xAI.
Jurvetson is currently a member of SpaceX’s board and was one of Tesla’s directors for almost 15 years, before his tenure ended in September 2020. Jurvetson was voted out of DFJ in 2017 after an internal investigation found he had lied about a series of allegations, including extra-marital affairs, Vox reported at the time. Reuters reported that Jurvetson denied any claims of sexual harassment and said he was leaving to focus on personal matters.