It was all about Elon overnight as the takeover target he stars on – Twitter – led some huge gains on the tech heavy Nasdaq, while earlier in the session his No. 1 cheerleader – tech-investing royalty Cathie Wood – came very, very good on a promise to back Tesla very, very hard.

First up – Cathie Wood’s flagship ARK Innovation exchange-traded fund (ETFARKK) snapped up a small fortune in Tesla stock, (as promised) for her ARK Autonomous Technology & Robotics ETF.

Wood went on for well over 108K of Tesla shares at circa US$242 worth around $30 million.

Wood’s aggressive play comes a few weeks after the Ark founding tech-investor leapt into Wall Street’s September sea-of-volatility to take a string of bold stakes in other tumbling major tech names on the cheap, following the Nasdaq’s most recent market losses

A big believer in Muskism, Ark runs eight ETFs all up, every one of them focused on different variations of the same tech theme – from robotics to space exploration –  holding a grand total of 34 different stocks.

Until crashing some 60% in the joy that is 2022, Wood’s ARKK could lay claim to a pretty outrageous 45% annual return over the past five years.

Wood’s show of confidence came a few Wall Street moments before the billionaire / mad professor apparently switched positions again about buying Twitter, sending a missive to the social media platform seemingly agreeing to go ahead with his original offer.

Word of the apparent latest turnaround sent Twitter soaring more than 20% – although notably still lower than Musk’s takeover price – which is a likely reflection of the markets confidence that Elon is as good as his 156 characters.

In a letter to Twitter (market eyebrows surely rise when the prolific tweeter writes letters to Twitter) Elon seems to say he’ll stump up pay what he offered back in April, the $44 billion of a lifetime ago, just before the sharp June descent of Twitter and other tech stocks (like Tesla), crashed, leaving the billionaire back-peddling out of the deal.

When Elon balked, an acrimonious relationship with Twitter execs turned legal, Musk declaring that the number of fake accounts on the platform was way, way higher than Twitter was suggesting.

The epic blue is due to go to trial in a few weeks, on 17 October, with opposing tech forces descending into a kindy-fight of public insults and bitter recriminations (largely on Twitter OFC, where Elon leads a fans base of some 100 million followers.

In a sample of the Trumpian exchanges, Elon tweeted the Twitter boss Parag Agrawal with this classy poo emoji:

Musk twitter
Via Twitter

Elon’s worth about $220 million depending on the way the wind is blowing on Wall Street, and he coulda paid a $1bn break-up fee to walk away. He’s set to be interviewed ahead of the trial this week.

US media reports a Twitter spokesperson acknowledged Musk’s latest proposal, before re-stating, “the intention of the company is to close the transaction at $54.20 per share.”

That perhaps reflects the lack of trust in Musk’s word, or whether the billionaire is taking another leaf from the Trumpian playbook of delay and obfuscation.

Meanwhile, Tesla shares continued their own descent – falling almost 9% in the EV maker’s worst session since the June crash after Q3 production – and delivery numbers fell short of analyst expectations over the weekend. Tesla stock has lost a full third of its value this year.

Ignoring the hullaballoo around Twitter, Wood made her move adding to a holding in Tesla which is by far the biggest stake in the Ark flagship fund, now accounting for nearly 10% of the ETF.

Wood says Tesla stock will hit $4,600 by 2026.

Wood said last week that her confidence in Tesla couldn’t be higher as the movement towards electric vehicles accelerates. The innovation investor previously trimmed her Tesla holding to raise cash in order to buy other names.

Wood’s other notable purchases this week include the open gaming platform Roblox, software maker UiPath and space-tech aspirant Rocket Lab.