Saudi billionaire Alwaleed bin Talal, one of the owners of Twitter, said he believes billionaire Elon Musk will be an excellent leader and will maximize the great potential of Twitter.

Ibn Talal stated - in a tweet via his Twitter account on Thursday - that he will retain his $1.9 billion stake in Twitter, and join its exciting journey, as he described it.

Ibn Talal, who heads the Kingdom Holding Company, one of the major owners of Twitter, had opposed the value offered to buy Twitter, and said through his account that the offer was not close to the intrinsic value of Twitter.

While Musk responded by asking him about the size of his direct and indirect ownership in the company.

In 2015, the Saudi prince mentioned that his company, Kingdom Holding Company, raised its stake to 5.2%, at a value of one billion dollars at the time, according to what was reported by Anadolu Agency.

On April 25, Musk - the richest man in the world - reached an agreement to acquire Twitter in a deal valued at about $44 billion.


Musk as interim CEO of Twitter

Meanwhile, a source familiar with the matter said Thursday that Musk is expected to become the CEO of Twitter temporarily after completing the $44 billion acquisition of the social networking services company, and the billionaire is close to obtaining funds for the deal.

Musk is also CEO of Tesla, and heads two other projects, The Boring Company and SpaceX.

Twitter shares increased their gains and rose by about 4% yesterday to $ 50.89, to be closer to the deal price of $ 54.20, as investors bet that the new funding made the completion of the deal more likely.

Paraj Agrawal, who was appointed CEO of Twitter in November, is expected to remain in his position until the sale of the company to Musk is completed.

Yesterday, Musk announced a list of a group of prominent investors ready to provide $ 7.14 billion in financing for his takeover offer on Twitter, including Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle Corp, and Sequoia Capital.

According to Reuters, Ibn Talal agreed to keep his stake rather than sell it for money.