Saudi prince coughs up nearly £200m for share of Twitter

Post by Steven Cox on 19th December 2011
 in Finance, Twitter

A mega-rich Saudi prince has just added another major acquisition to his global media empire by spending $300 million – about GBP195 million - to buy a stake in microblogging service Twitter.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who is said by Forbes magazine to be the world's 26^th richest person, will add the holding to that which he already has in Rupert Murdoch's News International.

And some observers believe his move is timely, given the fact that Twitter was said to have been a prime factor in the so-called 'Arab spring' this year, which saw his country threatened with serious unrest.

That threat only died down after the Kingdom announced a massive programme of new investment in social programmes in the country.

Meanwhile, Bernhard Warner, who co-founded advisory firm Social Media Influence, told Reuters news agency that, in the last year, many Arabs had seen the potential of Twitter for influencing events and opinions.

"In the past year, it has been a force in politics, in regime change, so there is not a single person in that region in a position of influence who is not following the increasing power of Twitter," he said.