Saudi Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal doubles Twitter stake as Jack Dorsey is confirmed as chief executive

The prince invested $300m in Twitter in 2011 before it listed in New York but the increased stake, approximately 4 million shares, comes as a surprise

Saudi prince Al-Waleed bin Talal now owns about 4 million shares in Twitter. (ABBAS MOMANI/AFP/Getty Images)

Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal has increased his stake in Twitter following Monday’s appointment of Jack Dorsey as chief executive.

The Saudi prince, who invested personally and via the Kingdom Holding Company sovereign wealth fund, doubled his stake in the troubled microblogging company to 34.9 million shares, approximately 5 per cent of the stock, making him the company’s second largest shareholder. Evan Williams, Mr Dorsey’s co-founder, remains its largest individual shareholder.

The prince invested $300m (£196m) in Twitter in 2011 before it listed in New York but the increased stake, approximately 4 million shares, comes as a surprise: he stated in an interview with the Financial Times in June that he opposed the permanent appointment of Mr Dorsey. He told the paper that Mr Dorsey should concentrate on running Square, the mobile credit card transaction business he also founded, which has filed for an initial public offering later this year.

Mr Dorsey will run Twitter on a full-time basis while simultaneously holding the chief executive position at Square. He has been running Twitter on an interim basis since Dick Costolo resigned in June. Mr Dorsey’s previous stints as chief executive and executive chairman at Twitter Neither were considered a great success for the company – he was unceremoniously ousted from the chief executive role after 18 months.

Twitter is attempting to revive its flagging business by launching a new retail platform and is thought to be considering changing its 140-character tweet limit. Its user base has stagnated, disappointing Wall Street, although the share price has rallied approximately 12 per cent since news of Mr Dorsey’s appointment was made public.

Prince Al-Waleed might have changed his mind about the dual chief executive decision, but some believe that Twitter has taken a significant risk by appointing someone who is also running another (soon to be) public company.

Elon Musk, the chief executive of not one but two companies (electric car-maker Tesla and space exploration group SpaceX) told a Vanity Fair summit this week that “I wouldn’t recommend running two companies – it decreases your freedom quite a lot.”