Former Microsoft Chief Executive, Steve Ballmer owns 4% stake in Twitter. This makes him the third biggest individual shareholder in the company. That’s even more than Twitter's Co-Founder and CEO, Jack Dorsey. This information was revealed by Ballmer himself in a tweet from his account.
Ballmer’s stake is worth more than $800 million based on Twitter’s $21 billion market value. The only individual investors to have greater stakes in Twitter than Ballmer are Twitter's Co-Founder Evan Williams and Saudi Billionaire, Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal. Williams has over 7.5% stake in Twitter while Alwaleed has about 5.2%. Shares of Twitter rose by 5.6% to $31.34 after Ballmer tweeted from his account that he had built up his stake over several months.
https://twitter.com/Steven_Ballmer/status/654887753893543936
Steve Ballmer was the Chief Executive Officer at Microsoft for 14 years from January 2000 till February 2014. He is succeeded by Satya Nadella. His personal wealth is estimated to be about $23.1 billion and is currently ranked number 21 in the Forbes 400 list. He is also the owner of the Los Angeles Clippers basketball team.
Earlier this month, Twitter launched a new feature called Moments that would be available for iOS and Android apps as well as for the web. The feature is aimed to help keep users stay updated about live events and the best stories that are trending on Twitter from a single place, even if they do not follow certain accounts. This feature would comprise of tweets, images, videos, GIFs, and Vines that are related to a particular event. The feature is currently available only in the US and will be available in other regions over the coming months. Moments is represented on Twitter by an additional tab with a lightening bolt icon. Users can choose the key moments of the day in specific categories like news, sports, entertainment, fun, etc.
Last month, it was reported that Twitter could be building a new product that would allow tweets longer than 140 characters. The push to go beyond the 140 character limit has resurfaced under interim CEO Jack Dorsey.
Source: Reuters