Elon Musk has once again set a sizeable portion of the Twittersphere into a frenzy, this time football fans, with a jokey tweet about buying Manchester United.

Musk took to Twitter earlier today with the following off-hand comment.

Also, I’m buying Manchester United ur welcome

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 17, 2022

Needless to say, the mere hint of the world’s richest (and arguably most controversial) man buying the world’s biggest (and arguably most dysfunctional) football team caused a bit of a tizzy.

Eventually, the man himself dispelled the fuss by pointing out that it was part of a “long-running joke on Twitter”, and stating that “I’m not buying any sports teams”.

Elon Musk did, however, admit that if he were to buy any sports team, it would be Manchester United. “They were my fav team as a kid”, he explained.

The idea of a Musk takeover might be an appealing one to certain United fans right now, following a disastrous start to the 2022/23 season that has left them bottom of the Premier League table.

There’s also been increasing unrest concerning the club’s current ownership, with the American Glazer family having purchased the club in a heavily leveraged deal in 2005 and subsequently drawn sizeable dividends while the team consistently underperformed. It’s now been a decade since a Manchester United team won the Premier League title.

As for Musk, he likely wouldn’t choose to be embroiled in another messy takeover bid while the legal repercussions of his last one are still being felt. The Tesla and SpaceX chief recently sold $6.9 billion of his Tesla shares to cover for the eventuality that he loses the impending Twitter trial.

The social network is pursuing Musk in the US courts over his withdrawn $44 billion bid to purchase the company.

 672 total views