Elon Musk has sent shockwaves through social media after tweeting Tuesday night 'he's buying Manchester United'.
The world's richest man was urged to buy the Premier League club by desperate fans earlier this year.
Musk, 51, who is the owner of Tesla and Space X and has a net worth of around $265billion (£200bn), submitted a bid in the region of $41billion (£31bn) to buy Twitter in April but United fans wanted him to splash his cash on their faltering team.
Musk tweeted tonight: 'To be clear, I support the left half of the Republican Party and the right half of the Democratic Party!
'Also, I'm buying Manchester United ur welcome [sic].'
Musk has a history of making irreverent tweets and his comment appears to be tongue-in-cheek with the declaration of intent regarding the ownership of United coming out of the blue today. It is not known if he does intend to pursue a deal.
At the time of writing Musk's tweet had been retweeted 28,000 times, quote tweeted 18,500 times and was liked more than 150,000 times.
Social media users were left in disbelief at Musk's tweet. One wrote: 'Are you serious?'
While a United supporter said: 'You have absolutely no idea the sheer amount of hope you just have to a million fans worldwide. Please do buy us though.'
United is one of the world's best-known and best-supported soccer clubs. They've been crowned champions of England a record 20 times and have won three European Cups.
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