By David Randall

NEW YORK (Reuters), Elon Musk, an iconoclastic billionaire has made a fortune by establishing a firm foundation in 21st Century technology. A $43 billion all-cash offer to purchase Twitter Inc (NYSE:) Musk could soon follow in the footsteps of the great tycoons by running a media company that helped him rise to fame.

Musk, chief executive of Tesla Electric Cars (NASDAQ) revealed his takeover offer in a regulatory file made public Thursday. Musk also said that Twitter would be taken private.

Being a Twitter owner would make Musk a more polarizing person. Musk is Wall Street’s favorite and most hated man. He combines the visionary Howard Hughes (NYSE) free-flowing obsessiveness, with an intense focus to revolutionize auto production that is reminiscent Henry Ford. This has resulted in a model for a billionaire who is equally likely to sell short-sellers than he was to launch a luxury red sports car into space as he was in 2018.

Musk is a controversial figure, so whatever your opinions, Musk would definitely shake up the market. The only thing that remains to be determined is if he will make it worse or better,” Michael Hewson chief market analyst for CMC Markets.

Forbes estimated that Musk has an estimated fortune of $273.6 million. He is now the richest man in the world and worth $92.3 billion more to Jeff Bezos (NASDAQ:). Musk was the son of a Canadian mother, and a South African father. He later went to Pennsylvania and graduated in 1997.

He was not the one to invent rockets and electric cars. He also did not found Tesla. However, his vision that Tesla’s electric vehicles should be highly-performance machines equipped with smartphone-style software changed the face of global automobile business. This prompted established firms to attempt to keep up and encouraged new all-electric rivals like startup Rivian.

Although many expected Tesla’s failure at first, it was almost there during the 2008-2009 financial crises and 2017-2018 when Tesla was going through “manufacturing hell”, Musk referred to it as. But in 2020 the company made its first quarterly profit.

Tesla’s success has been recognized by Wall Street. The company’s stock capitalization has risen to over $1 trillion, more than the combined market capitalization of all three Detroit automakers. Toyota Motor Corp. (NYSE:) Corp.

His company SpaceX is also being led by President Gwynne shotwell. It has developed rockets that can launch satellites to space, and return them to Earth.

Musk, perhaps more than any person else, has contributed to the mainstream acceptance of cryptocurrency and bitcoin. Tesla now holds $2B in bitcoin, and is one of few companies who accept Dogecoin payments.

Musk had to deal with a lot of frustrated subordinates. His largest shareholders seem to have lost patience with him from time to time. Cathie, a stock-picker and noted stock investor, said Tuesday at a conference that her ARK Innovation fund had the highest performance U.S. ETF in 2020 due to Tesla’s outsize position. She also suggested she was frustrated by Musk’s “antics” and keeps very little contact with him.

Musk’s hostility to unions has been criticized by labor advocates. Musk is also at odds with his former business associates as well as state and federal regulators. Wall Street figures, such the short seller Jim Chanos from Kynikos Associates, have been critical of Musk. Musk criticized Chanos for suggesting that Musk’s production figures for Tesla’s tunnel company The Boring Company and for Tesla were impossible to achieve.

It’s not the personal stuff or the attacks on others that bother me. It’s something I have become accustomed to. Chanos explained to CNBC that it’s his willingness to speak things he thinks are stretching, in order to be polite.

Reuters, too, has faced his ire, with Musk tweeting in 2018 https://twitter.com/elonmusk/status/1014800936198213633 that a reporter misled the public about Model 3 production and “followed that up with mean tweet to me” on his birthday.

GLOBAL REACH

Musk was a household brand thanks to his Twitter account. Musk has over 81 million Twitter followers. His popularity helped him to earn the hosting spot on “Saturday Night Live,” the iconic comedy television show in America.

Musk would be the latest in a long line of American business tycoons to make their fortunes through media properties. This includes William Randolph Hearst, who made his fortunes as a late 19th-century businessman, and Jack Welch who bought the parent company for broadcast network NBC. He was the chief executive of NBC. General Electric (NYSE:).

Musk used Twitter to target short sellers large and small. Musk has also posted everything, from Dad jokes and polls about what he should do to make the most of Tesla’s stock-price surge.

He has caused a heated debate with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commision over his Twitter content. Musk has to comply with a 2018 settlement made by the agency. He was required to have pre-approval of some Twitter posts after Musk tweeted that he had secured funding to privatize Tesla. Musk claimed he had defrauded investors. However, the SEC settlement did not include any admissions by Musk nor an inference of innocence. Musk accuses the SEC now of “unrelenting harassment.”

Analyst at Wedbush Securities Dan Ives stated that Twitter has been intertwined to Musk’s worldwide reach. This is the reason he loves Twitter so much. This is an absolute nightmare for Twitter because they must find another bidder unless they are willing to eat lawsuits as breakfast.