Elon Musk has caused a twitter storm after tweeting that he is buying the English Premier League football club.

The Tesla founder’s tweet comes at a turbulent time for the football club and was welcomed by some fans who are disenchanted by the club’s current owners.

‘Also, I’m buying Manchester United ur welcome’ the tweet said.

However, Musk then rowed back and said that it was all a joke.

Elon Musk has a long history of irreverent tweets and is also embroiled in a legal dispute with the social media giant after backing away from an apparent plan to acquire it.

News publishers however, will no doubt be grateful for another Musk headine grabber in the slow news or ‘silly season’ that charecterises the traditionally quiet month of August.

In the auto industry, it’s a time for annual plant maintenance, tooling changeovers for the new model year and staff vacations. And keeping an eye on random social media musings from the great and the good.