Elon Musk has emerged as a potential buyer for Manchester United as the Glazer family's soft deadline for bids draws ever closer.
The Glazers are believed to have set a date of February 17 for bids, though this is not a hard and fast deadline if an appropriate bidder needs longer. A multi-billion pound bid would be needed to take over the Premier League club, which was put up for sale by its American owners in November,
Musk has spoken about United being the one sports team he might consider a bid for, even if reports of investment were dismissed by the Tesla boss as a "long-running joke". More recently, though, it has been claimed that he is monitoring the situation around United amid interest from Ineos boss Jim Ratcliffe and a Qatari group.
Musk completed his takeover of Twitter in October 2022, for a reported £37.9bn. That dwarfs the asking price for Man Utd, with suggestions the club could be sold for £4.5bn despite initial reports that the Glazers were after substantially more.
The Glazers are believed to be split on whether they would agree to a sale if a potential buyer falls short of their £5bn asking price. The American family have owned the club since 2005, and could get settle for investment rather than a full takeover, though there could yet be bids from Saudi and American investors as well as those with ties to the UK and Qatar.
Musk, 51, has been on Forbes' rich list for each of the last 10 years. He ranks amongst the richest men in the world, with a staggering net worth.
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According to the most recent Forbes billionaires list in 2022, Musk was the richest man in the world that year with a fortune of $219bn (£179.9bn). This has since fallen, though, with his net worth at the time of writing - also according to Forbes - estimated at $187.2bn (£153.8bn).
His fortune comes from his position as co-founder and senior figure within a number of companies. As well as Twitter and electric car business Tesla, the South Africa-born billionaire is founder and CEO of SpaceX and founder of tunnelling business The Boring Company.
SpaceX on its own is worth an estimated $127bn, having seen its value quadruple in the space of three years. Earlier this month, meanwhile, he was cleared of deceiving investors over tweets concerning a proposed deal involving Tesla.
"I’m not buying any sports teams," Musk said in 2022 after his joke about a bid for United attracted media attention. “Although, if it were any team, it would be Man U. They were my fav team as a kid.”
