Vanguard Group is now the largest shareholder of Twitter’s stock, topping Tesla CEO Elon Musk amidst talks of a buy-out. 

Vanguard disclosed that it now owns 82.4 million shares of Twitter, or 10.3 per cent of the company, according to filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The documents show that Vanguard increased its stake in the company last month, pushing the value of its holdings to about $3.78 billion. 

As at last December, the Vanguard group owned about 70.4 million Twitter shares representing 8.8 per cent of shares outstanding.

The group is one of the biggest investment managers globally, offering mutual funds, ETFs, and retirement products. The company had about $8.1 trillion in assets under management as of January 31, 2022.

This new development follows disapproval from top shareholder Saudi Prince Al waleed bin Talal on Thursday.  Mr Al Saud rejected Mr Musk’s bid as he did not believe the offer was “close to the intrinsic value of Twitter given its growth prospects.”

On Thursday morning, Mr Musk offered to buy Twitter for $41.4 billion, describing the offer as “best and final.” Twitter’s management then held a meeting with its employees.

Mr Musk has often criticised Twitter’s policies over targeted misinformation, calls for violence, harassment and conspiracy theories. A lawsuit and a subsequent $20 million settlement between him and the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) made it mandatory for company lawyers to examine Mr Musk’s tweets. In 2018, Mr Musk was accused of fraud after he tweeted that he was considering taking Tesla private for $420 a share.