Elon Musk, the world's richest person, bought Twitter for a whopping $44 billion on Monday. (File)
After shaking up one of the world's most prominent social media platforms and snagging Twitter for $44 billion in a bizarre hostile takeover on Monday, billionaire Tesla founder Elon Musk has announced a new target: Coca-Cola.
In yet another eccentric tweet, newfound Twitter owner Musk today said that he planned to buy Coca-Cola next "to put the cocaine back in".
Next I'm buying Coca-Cola to put the cocaine back in
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 28, 2022
Known for his outlandish statements, Musk's reputation on Twitter precedes him -- far before he bought the company. Musk has, in the past, polled Twitter users, asking if he should sell 10% of his Tesla stock in order to pay for unrealized capital gains, following which he has actually sold off nearly $7 billion in Tesla shares when over 57% of poll participants voted in favour of his suggestion.
In the weeks leading up to his Twitter takeover, when Musk was only set to join the board and nothing else, the Tesla founder tweeted a series of ideas that he believed could improve the platform, with some appearing serious -- like the possibility of introducing an edit button -- while others seemed wholly bizarre, such as potentially turning Twitter's San Francisco headquarters into a homeless shelter.
His most recent Coca-Cola tweet -- indiscernible as serious or in jest, given his history of acting on his whimsical social media statements -- is a nod to the veteran beverage company's colourful history with cocaine. Coca Cola's eponymous trademark soft drink is known for its two primary ingredients: coca leaves and kola nuts. While kola nuts are a source of caffeine, coca leaves are the base from which the psychoactive drug cocaine is extracted.
Coca-Cola at one point used coca leaves, with cocaine present in them, when the ingredient was still considered medicinal in the nineteenth century. However, as the drug became stigmatised and Prohibition hit the US, cocaine was removed from their secret formula and instead replaced with decocainised coca leaves.
