Bill Ackman Reveals He Holds $10M Stake In Elon Musk's X Amid Antisemitism Controversy: 'Whether We Make A Profit...Is Not Important'

Bill Ackman has for the first time revealed the value of the minority stake that his hedge fund holds in Elon Musk's X.

What Happened: Ackman's hedge fund, The Pershing Square Foundation PSHZF, invested $10 million in X when the social media company went private after being acquired by Musk for $44 billion.

While it was known that Ackman had picked up a stake in X, this is the first time the fund manager has revealed the exact quantum.

"We are a very small investor. The @PershingSqFdn invested only $10m," Ackman said in a response on X.

We are a very small investor. The @PershingSqFdn invested only $10m.

— Bill Ackman (@BillAckman) December 2, 2023

Ackman was responding to speculation that he is "like a very big" investor in X, after he issued a long statement defending Musk's outburst against big advertisers.

"Musk is a free speech absolutist which I respect. Whether we make a profit on our investment is not important to us as we never intend to sell our interest," Ackman said.

See Also: Elon Musk’s Standoff With Apple, Disney And Other Big Advertisers Forces X To Turn To Smaller Ones

He agreed with Musk's criticism of big advertisers that have boycotted X – the list includes Apple Inc. AAPL, Walt Disney Co. DIS and others.

"TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and others have enormous amounts of problematic content, antisemitic and otherwise, but the advertisers don't boycott those platforms," Ackman said.

Apart from calling out Meta Platforms Inc.'s META social networks, Ackman also criticized Disney for kowtowing to public pressure while it invests heavily in TikTok in terms of advertisements.

X Steers To Smaller Advertisers: In the meantime, while big advertisers are fleeing X, the social network is turning to smaller ones to recoup some of the estimated $75 million loss in advertising revenue.

“Small and medium businesses are a very significant engine that we have definitely underplayed for a long time. It [was] always part of the plan — now we will go even further with it,” said X.

While Ackman says he is not concerned about turning a profit on his $10 million investment in X, he thinks we should be "grateful that X is owned by Musk."

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