Elon Musk says he’s ‘buying Manchester United’

Elon Musk sent football fans into a frenzy last night after announcing his plans to purchase Manchester United.

The Tesla and SpaceX CEO – who has a net worth of around £200 billion, making him the richest man in the world – submitted a bid in the region of £31 billion to buy Twitter back in April, though he is now attempting to exit the deal.

At the time, Manchester United fans urged Musk to instead splash his cash on their team amid fierce protests against the club’s current owners, the Glazer family. 

And in the early hours of this morning (August 17th), Musk seemingly made those wishes come true by following up a joke about political parties in the US with the tweet: “Also, I’m buying Manchester United ur welcome”. 

While Musk is known for his tongue-in-cheek tweets, his announcement last night sparked excitement and speculation amongst Manchester United fans, who seemed to support the idea of the South African businessman running the club. 

One United supporter replied: “You have absolutely no idea the sheer amount of hope you just have to a million fans worldwide. Please do buy us though.”

Another encouraged: “If you want a real challenge in life, it’s not putting people on Mars, it’s making @ManUTD successful again. Buy out the Glazers [and] with our 600m global followers you instantly become the most popular person in the world!”

A third made a joking reference to the peculiar name Musk chose for his son, writing: “At this point, I don’t care if you rename Old Trafford as ‘X Æ A-12 Musk Stadium’. Just buy the club.”

However, a couple of hours after his initial tweet, Musk backtracked on his claim, revealing to his 103.4 million followers that he was only joking. 

Replying to a follower who asked if he was being serious, Musk wrote: “No, this is a long-running joke on Twitter. I’m not buying any sports teams.”

Though he later said if he were to buy a sports club, it would be Manchester United because ‘they were my fav [sic] team as a kid’.

Manchester United are currently bottom of the Premier League, for the first time since August 1992, after a humiliating 4-0 loss to Brentford on Saturday.