Everyone is familiar with the Twitter bird – the blue, distinctive logo that describes Twitter in less than 140 characters. Its backstory is quite interesting. Named and designed after Larry Bird, a Boston Celtics player, the blue bird replaced the gooey green logo that preceded it. As time passed, the blue bird evolved into the Twitter bird, designed after a mountain bluebird.

Twitter has been a recluse of sorts. While it does not fully conform to social media status due to its lower than most character and video limits, it supports its own fan base of intellectuals internationally. Perhaps this advantage is what makes Twitter so profitable. The quest to find out who Twitter's top shareholders is fascinating.

Twitter's revenue comes from advertisements made on the site.

But first, the statistics behind Twitter's success:

• Average Daily Active Users – 217 million.
• Quarterly revenue (Q4 2021) - $1.57 billion
• Most followed individual on Twitter – Former U.S. President Barrack Obama with over 132 million followers.

So, with this in mind, it is apparent why Twitter is an investment of choice for the following shareholders:

The Vanguard Group, Inc.

One of the world's largest companies, the Vanguard Group provides mutual funds and Exchange-Traded Funds. Its other services include asset management, financial planning, and other financial services. Its clients own it since it is owned by the funds it manages.

Vanguard owns 82.4 million Twitter shares, which translates to a 10.3 % stake.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk's acquisition of Twitter was the trending topic on Twitter for days on end. For a brief moment, he was Twitter's largest shareholder but was trumped by the Vanguard Group. This was not his first rodeo in business; he owns Tesla Inc. and is the chief engineer at SpaceX. He is the wealthiest man in the world.

Elon has over 95 million Twitter followers and is a fan of tweeting ad posting memes. On April 1, 2022, he had already acquired 9.13% of the total Twitter shares, making him the largest shareholder. However, his reign was short-lived because he had not yet filed a notification to the SEC within ten days after his purchase.

He offered to buy each Twitter stock at $54.20 per share, making his offer-on-the-table to be $44 billion. Due to his intrepid attempts at acquiring Twitter, the board of directors formulated a strategy to exempt any single investor from purchasing more than 15% of the total stocks.

During his acquisition of Twitter, most users and financial analysts felt that Elon Musk was taking Twitter hostage and that this was a hostile takeover. It seemed like a winner-takes-all situation and would have been if the board did not limit investors' rights. He set some demands on the table and is reported to have said, "My offer is my best and final offer and if it is not accepted, I would need to reconsider my position as a shareholder."

Morgan Stanley

Morgan Stanley is a financial institution that deals with investment management and banking. It was founded in 1935 by J.P. Morgan's grandson, Henry Morgan. With a 5.6% stake in Twitter, Morgan Stanley becomes the third-largest shareholder, right after Vanguard and Elon Musk. It owns 8.4% of Twitter shares, which translates to about 67 million shares as of December 2021.

Morgan Stanley advised Elon Musk to make his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. It also helped him secure the $22.5 billion required for the deal. Morgan Stanley got within $440 million and $1.3 billion in interest from the deal.

BlackRock

BlackRock deals with mutual funds and ETFs and is the world's largest asset manager. Running assets of up to $10 trillion. Most of these financial institutions that manage people's assets invest these assets in other corporations and gain profits. For instance, BlackRock has invested in Twitter and Apple (6.34%) and Microsoft (6.77%), among other major corporations.

The BlackRock Fund Advisors own about 4.7% stake in Twitter with about 35.9 million shares. The strategy used by the asset management giant was to purchase stock directly from the earliest Twitter investors (and employees) who might have wanted to surrender their stocks. The sale was made by employees who joined Twitter before 2009.

State Street

State Street is the world's largest custodian bank and provides asset management services to its millions of customers. Twitter's investors' portfolio includes top-rating giants in their industries of operation. State Street is one of the companies that are too big to fail. With up to $3.9 trillion under its management, State Street is one of Twitter's notable shareholders.

Jack Dorsey

Jack Dorsey and Elon Musk are the only two individual shareholders on Twitter's top ten shareholders list. The other owners are financial institutions. Dorsey has served as CEO and chairman of the board of directors at Twitter at different times during his run at the firm. He left, stepped down as CEO and was replaced by Parag Agrawal, the long-standing CTO since 2017.

He owns about 18 million Twitter shares, which is about 2.4%. He lauded Elon Musk's acquisition, claiming it to be the right direction to make Twitter 'a public good, not a company.'

Twitter's Board of Directors

Even Twitter's board of directors wants a share of the cake. From its co-founder Jack Dorsey to its current CEO, Parag Agrawal, here is a breakdown of ownership percentage according to highest to least:

When Jack Dorsey left Twitter to concentrate on his company, Block, most financial analysts felt that his decision was caused by Twitter's leaning toward making money than being a free social media site where users could freely express their opinions without judgment. Elon Musk's thoughts were the same, making his acquisition of Twitter purely ideological and not commercially inspired.

However, with conglomerates such as the Vanguard Group, State Street, BlackRock, and others all investing in Twitter, it is clear that Twitter's fortunes are far from depleting. As more improvements are made on the social media site, Twitter's investors will laugh all the way to the bank each financial year.