On Wednesday, English soccer club Manchester United saw its shares rise by almost 17% in premarket trading, after Elon Musk joked about buying the club.

Musk’s Joke

Taking to Twitter, the chief executive of Tesla said that he was buying Manchester United and Twitter users questioned him about his intentions.

The CEO clarified hours later that it had only been a joke. He said that he had no intention of buying any sports teams.

But, he added that if he were to buy any sports team, it would be Manchester United because it had been his favorite when he was a kid.

Shares of Manchester United that trade under the ticker MANU on New York Stock Exchange recorded gains of 3.68%.

They had initially risen by 17% after Musk’s tweet, but had eventually pared some of the gains by 4:30 a.m. ET.

Taking into account the most recent market valuation of the soccer club, it would cost Musk an eye-watering $2 billion to purchase Manchester United.

The reaction

The original tweet from the SpaceX and Tesla CEO had resulted in a wide-spread reaction. It had been retweeted 140,000 times and had garnered 573,000 likes.

Fans of Manchester United were also taken by surprise, but were also hopeful, as many of them have been full of criticism for the American Glazer family, which is the current owner of the club.

This is primarily because of the slow start of the club in the current season in the English Premiere League. It has already suffered from two losses in the two games it has played.

In addition, the club had also failed last year in an attempt to set up the European Super League. Even before Musk offered clarification about his tweet being a joke, some fans had already been skeptical.

This is because Musk has a tendency of making such jokes online routinely.

Previous jokes

Back in April this year, the billionaire had tweeted that he would buy Coca-Cola, so he could put the cocaine in the drink again.

When he offered his clarification about not being serious about his purchase of Manchester United, the entrepreneur referred to the tweet he had made about Coca-Cola.

Musk said that even though putting the cocaine in Coca-Cola again would undoubtedly be popular, he did not have any intention of buying the company.

The original tweet from Musk about purchasing Coca-Cola had come just days after his offer of purchasing social media company Twitter for $44 billion had been accepted by the board.

Since then, Musk has gone back on his deal in a time span of four months after he had agreed to purchase it.

The dispute has prompted the social media company to take legal action against the billionaire for backing out of his deal.

Manchester United continues to struggle in its current season and there does not seem to be a resolution to the problems that the club is facing for now.