"UPDATED" Saudi Prince Invest $300 Million in Twitter

On Monday Saudi billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, along with his company Kingdom Holding Co., announced a $300 million dollar investment into microblogging website Twitter. This comes after months of negotiations and is meant to give the company a boost as they attempt to garner more advertising. At this time it is not clear how much of Twitter the Prince will control. AOL, Apple Inc., MCI Inc., Motorola, Fox News and various other technology and media companies are among Alwaleed bin Talal’s other investments

Matt Graves, Twitter spokesman, confirmed the investment but could not provide further details.

This comes as Twitter has released a series of updates trying to make the site more appealing and easier to navigate. It also aims to allow more detailed information about corporate brands as they try to convert more companies into advertisers. Earlier this year Twitter raised $400 million from other investors. In September CEO Dick Costolo said the investments would allow the company to control its own destiny and avoid, at this time, having to take to company public.

UPDATE

From a Middle East Online report:

“Al-Walid also criticised US media which he described as “in general … pro-Israel.” But he also accused Arabs of not being pro-active in fighting the allegedly slanted media.

He said that during last month’s street protests in France, the US television network Fox — owned by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation in which Al-Walid himself has shares — ran a banner saying: “Muslim riots.”

“I picked up the phone and called Murdoch… (and told him) these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty,” he said.

“Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from Muslim riots to civil riots.”