P Diddy was named as an investor in Elon Musk's takeover of Twitter after the company's list of shareholders was unsealed in federal court.
It comes after a federal lawsuit was filed following Musk's failure to pay arbitration fees after he bought the social media platform.
Among the successful businesspeople listed as shareholders were Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed bin Talal al Saud, billionaire Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison, and Sean “Diddy” Combs . The federal filing gives insight into those responsible for financing Elon’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter , which he renamed X, in October 2023, according to The Hollywood Reporter.
Twitter, now known as X , fought against naming its investors and claimed "no publicly held corporation owns 10% or more.”
However, a journalist and the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press proposed that Twitter’s standing within the global marketplace of ideas “necessitated understanding the financial motives that could potentially shape the platform".
The court insisted that Twitter disclose its list of non-redacted names. Twitter then took the case to the Northern District of California federal court, where there are rules surrounding the disclosure of entities with a financial stake in the lawsuit.
“Here, respondents have presented little more than conjecture in support of their position,” the federal judge wrote in the ruling. “The disclosure statement does not contain any scandalous information or trade secrets. On the record before it, the court is unable to discern a factual basis for sealing the disclosure.”
Jacob Silverman, the journalist who teamed up with the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press, told Fortune the public needed to know who could be influencing Twitter, now known as X.
“Simply, it’s about transparency, disclosure, and free speech—on behalf of the public and X’s users,” Jacobe said, adding, “it’s important that the public knows who owns the platform, who might influence its governance, and who Musk owes.”
The media outlet that was first to release the full list of Twitter/X stakeholders was The Washington Post. According to the Washington Post, there was a fund linked to Diddy and many other investors amid Musk’s bid to buy Twitter.
Many of the funds that were listed in the court filing were controlled by either the same firm or person. Along with Diddy , the Saudi Crown Prince, and Larry, other investors named were venture capitalist firm founder Andreessen Horowitz, Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, and more.
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