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Football

17th Aug 2022

Elon Musk announces his intentions to buy Manchester United

Jack Peat

Piers Morgan warned him against the purchase 

Billionaire tech entrepreneur Elon Musk has announced his intentions to buy Manchester United football club.

The Tesla CEO, who recently backed out of a 44 billion dollar (£36.3 billion) deal to buy Twitter, signalled that he may already have plans for some of that money with a cryptic tweet early Wednesday morning.

The Glazer family is reportedly open to selling the team for roughly $5 billion, with fan discontent over their ownership building in recent months.

According to recent reports, United fans are considering boycotting Old Trafford for the game against Liverpool as they ramp up their protests.

A demonstration against the owners resulted in an Old Trafford megastore being closed prior to their Premier League opener.

Footage posted on Twitter by anti-Glazer fan account The 1958 shows a number of fans bearing a banner emblazoned with ‘Fight for United’ as fans call for the unpopular owners to sell the club.

Musk’s potential intervention could therefore be a welcome one, and he certainly has the financial clout to pull it off.

Last week it was revealed that Musk had sold nearly seven billion US dollars (£5.8 billion) of shares in Tesla ahead of legal battle, which is scheduled for October.

He is also quids-in after he swerved the Twitter purchase.

Musk, 51, tweeted to his 103 million followers: “To be clear, I support the left half of the Republican Party and the right half of the Democratic Party!

He added: “Also, I’m buying Manchester United ur welcome.”

Several people have been quick to warn him off getting involved in the club, with Piers Morgan telling him he would be much better looking elsewhere if he was serious about venturing into English football.

Piers quote tweeted the businessman and said: “Trust me on this, Elon – you don’t want to go anywhere near them… if you want to buy a football team, try @Arsenal.”

The Gunners fan, 57, was met with an influx of jokes about his own club following his response, with one user tweeting: “Nice try but he only associates himself with global world brands come on Elon do it.”

Another added: “He doesn’t even know what an Arsenal is,” while a third joked: “If he wanted a London club he’d be aiming a bit bigger than Arsenal.”

Regardless, Musk seemed to pour cold water on the idea after he tweeted that standup is his “side-hustle”.

Responding to a Tesla account he said he wasn’t serious about buying the club.

“No, this is a long-running joke on Twitter. I’m not buying any sports teams.”

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