Democrats Develop Elon Musk Derangement Syndrome – WSJ

Democrats are raising a new bogeyman. Connecticut Sen. Chris Murphy on Oct. 31 called for the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, or Cfius, to investigate the national security implications of Saudi Arabia s purchase of Twitter. We should be concerned that the Saudis, who have a clear interest in repressing political speech and impacting U.S. politics, are now the second-largest owner of a major social media platform, he tweeted.

The Saudi government didn t purchase Twitter. A Saudi prince s conglomerate, Kingdom Holding Co., held a roughly $1.89 billion stake in Twitter as a public company that it is rolling over in Mr. Musk s deal to take it private. Mr. Murphy says the Saudis have a clear political motivation because they could have cashed out of Twitter as many public investors did, which would have been the financially sound thing to do.

Not if the Saudis, like former CEO Jack Dorsey and U.S. venture funds that kept or acquired stakes, believe Mr. Musk will turn the challenged company around. Democrats may struggle to comprehend this, but not everyone agrees that Mr. Musk is destined to fail.

The day after Mr. Murphy s letter, the Washington Post reported that White House officials were considering a national-security investigation into Mr. Musk s Twitter takeover owing to concern about its foreign investors namely, the Kingdom Holding Co. and Binance, a cryptocurrency exchange founded by a Chinese-Canadian business executive.

via www.wsj.com