Shaquille O’Neal’s Involvement in X’s Profit Revealed Amid Elon Musk’s Legal Trouble

The ‘Big Aristotle’ has always been a trailblazer, whether in sports or business. Be it his power dunks forcing the NBA to create new rules or being named Player of the Week in his first week, Shaquille O’Neal is a legend! On the business side of the NBA, the big guy is also one of the trendsetters. He wasn’t afraid or hesitant to try and embrace new things, such as the thriving technology back in the ’90s. His ambitions might have led to significant changes for the NBA as well as Elon Musk’s Twitter, as NBA Commissioner Adam Silver recounts.

During the latest segment of The Big Podcast with the NBA Commissioner as a guest, host Adam Lefkoe asked him about his early time in the NBA. He reminded the listeners that both O’Neal and Silver entered the league in different positions, but at the same time.

Looking back, the Commissioner recalled how he took inspiration from O’Neal’s interest in the technology world. “I don’t think Shaq gets enough credit for, he was an early adopter in terms of technology,” he said. As he recounted, the 4x NBA champ wanted to buy an editing machine and edit his own videos.

Silver also recalled how it was O’Neal who embraced Twitter, now known as X. His tweets intrigued Silver and thus began NBA Twitter.

“I think you created NBA Twitter in the day because I can remember you were I think you (Shaq) were in Boston (Shaq informs he was in Phoenix) and you tweeted and you said I’m in the lobby whatever Hotel like the first person who finds me or whatever else. And I remember, I think that’s when I first signed up for Twitter, I’m like ‘What is this?’ … Shaq was one of the first adopters before ever there was NBA Twitter and people were talking about the impact that social media would have on this league,” Commissioner Silver shared.

While that’s well and good, it seems the social media platform under Elon Musk now is going through something of a rough patch.

Launched in 2006, Jack Dorsey, Noah Glass, Biz Stone, and Evan Williams started Twitter. Later, in 2022, Musk bought the company. Just recently, the SEC sued him for failing to reveal his acquisition of Twitter stocks in a timely manner. Through this, he reportedly managed to underpay $150 million.

However, he claimed the reason for the delay was that, after purchasing the stocks, he had attempted to back out, which prompted the company to sue him to proceed with the acquisition. Following the potential departure of the SEC’s current chair, Gary Gensler, it remains unclear whether the lawsuit will continue under the new administration.

This was one of the many examples of how the Los Angeles Lakers legend has always been open-minded about technology. Silver also mentioned one device that O’Neal carried with him. It was a phone the size of his shoe. 

Shaquille O’Neal shows off his shoe phone to teammates

 It’s unsure which particular device Silver was talking about. But back in the 2005 NBA All-Star Game, the former Heat player had a super cool device to show off to his teammates. He pulled out a shoe in his locker room and put it close to his ear as if he were talking on the phone. It turned out he was talking on the phone. It was one indeed. But did it work?

It had one long antenna, and the phone was right in the middle of the shoe. Cool, right? O’Neal went on to show it to his former teammate, Dwyane Wade, as well. After appearing shocked, Wade laughed as he spoke on the phone. After that, Shaquille O’Neal passed it to Allen Iverson. He, too, held the shoe phone in surprise.

He didn’t expect it. Upon hearing the voice on the other end, he assured everyone that it worked just fine. “Oh yo! It work for real, man!” Iverson said.

When asked about whose idea it was, he confirmed that it was O’Neal’s own idea. “Mine. Shaq shoe phone, baby! Actually works,” he claimed. Who else could come up with a mobile phone in a shoe?

‘Shaq Fu’ had invested in Google in 1999 when it was still emerging. Much later came social media. O’Neal was way ahead of his time. Clearly!