Piers Morgan urges Elon Musk not to buy Manchester United, but to get his beloved Arsenal instead!

Piers Morgan followed up Elon Musk’s joke about buying Manchester United – by cheekily urging the space pioneer to fork out for his Arsenal side instead.

On Tuesday, Musk tweeted: ‘Also, I’m buying Manchester United ur welcome’, although he later clarified that it was part of a long-running gag linking the billionaire businessman with purchasing a number of sports clubs.

However television personality and Arsenal fan Morgan, 57, responded to Musk’s initial claim, asking the SpaceX man to come for his Gunners, currently owned by Stan Kroenke.

Morgan wrote: ‘Trust me on this, Elon – you don’t want to go anywhere near them… if you want to buy a football team, try @Arsenal.’

Fan Piers Morgan joked that Elon Musk should buy Arsenal instead of rivals Manchester United

Musk had tweeted ‘he’s buying Man United’, before confirming that it was a long-standing joke

Musk had said that while he was not involved in an offer for the Red Devils, they would feature highly on any potential list if he was to buy a sports team.

‘If it were any team, it would be Man U,’ the 51-year-old Musk wrote. ‘They were my fav team as a kid.’

United’s poor start to the season – beginning with losses to Brighton and Brentford – has meant that there are increased calls for some kind of change in system at Old Trafford.

Musk’s initial comment sparked rumours, before he confirmed it was a ‘long-running joke’ 

In a follow-up tweet, Musk added that Manchester United were his favourite team growing up 

However, those results – and the increased pressure on new manager Erik ten Hag and his squad – mean that Morgan is not alone in believing potential investors may not want to go ‘anywhere near’ the club at the moment.  

Manchester United are currently owned by the American Glazer family, but fan-led protests have made it clear that many of those in the stands at Old Trafford are not happy with the present operation – and haven’t been for some time.

As of the end of the day’s market on Tuesday, United had a market capitalization of $2.08billion (£1.72m), although since Forbes claims Musk has a net worth of $272bn (£225bn), after success with PayPal, Tesla, and SpaceX, he could easily afford this purchase.