Saudi prince opens wallet, buys $300m slice of Twitter

Saudi prince and billionaire investor Alwaleed bin Talal has snaffled a $300m (£194m) stake in Twitter. The prince, along with his investment vehicle Kingdom Holding Company (KHC), bagged the strategic stake after "several months of negotiations and comprehensive due diligence". "Our investment in Twitter reaffirms our …

[Winkypop]

The Saudi's aren't normally in favour of freedom of expression

What's up with buying into Twitter?

Or is it a ploy for greater control?

[Bumpy Cat]

Yes, I couldn't help thinking.

What are the chances of some Spring-type rising assisted by social media in Saudi Arabia, but a few strong words from Saudi investors mean that the protesters are kept off Twitter (or even sold out by Twitter).

[Anonymous Coward]

its all a plot

a rough guess. The sort of subversive tweets used to destabalise egypt syria iran libya etc will be blocked in the fun loving land of saudi arabia with one phone call from prince watsisface.

[Anonymous Coward]

Wrong time for me...

...I've just been killing off all my tweets and am moving on. I'm also killing my facebook history too. For me, Twitter is a plucked bird that's ripe for the oven.

[Drew V.]

Because...

...autocratic oligarchy and American internet corporations go great together! Or so it would appear.

Seriously, Twitter's professed "subversiveness" was always a bit of a marketing stunt. Someone knocks on the door with either enough cash, or a serious lawsuit, they were always going to fold and comply with the powerful. Just like Paypal cancelled the Wikileaks account in a heartbeat, even though Paypal doesn't mind doing business with the KKK and continues to do so.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Our investment in Twitter...... " means we can control 'freedom' of speech within our Kingdom!

[Anonymous Coward]

Tsk tsk:

"Our investment in Twitter...... " means we can <b>regulate</b> freedom of speech within our Kingdom!

There.. now all PC and very nice to all eyes and ears..

[Robert Ramsay]

7% of Murdoch, eh?

why didn't he just buy the rest and close it down?

[b166er]

@Drew, well they have done so far... But then, that's oil-driven economies for you.

'George Bush Sr. was in a business meeting at the Ritz Carlton Hotel in Washington on the morning of September 11th with one of Osama Bin Laden's brothers.'

[Anonymous Coward]

No Tweeting....

.... when those rich Arabs come over here to gamble, screw and get pissed then.