Elon Musk reveals wanting to buy Coca-Cola, netizens suggest what else he must add to cart

After his buyout of the micro-blogging site Twitter, billionaire Elon Musk, as promised, is having fun. In a flurry of tweets, Musk joked that he has set eyes on snapping up Coca Cola, the Atlanta drinks giant, so that he can "put cocaine back in" the beverage.

Musk was hinting at return to the original 1894 Coke formula when the beverage actually contained roughly 3.5 milligrams of cocaine until 1903. It also had incredibly high levels of caffeine until shortages and price hikes forced the drinks giant to cut the levels by half.

The tweet elicited a spate of flippant responses, including one post which beseeched Elon to 'bring it back' and shared an image of what appeared to be one of the first publicly sold Coca-Cola bottles in 1894.

Musk also exchanged jokes with a user who posted a tweet alongside the eccentric billionaire’s profile picture which read: 'Now I'm going to buy McDonalds and fix all the ice cream machines...'

The high levels of caffeine in Coca-Cola remained until the end of World War One. By 1908, anti-drug campaigners began attacking America's growing dependence on the substance and started calling for a national ban. One Texan politician declared in 1909: The reason they put this dope in Coca-Cola is to create a constant craving for more and thus sell the drink. In 1918, Coca-Cola halved the quotient to today's levels – a can now contains about half the caffeine of a shot of espresso, reports Daily Mail.

Musk's reference to cocaine in Coca Cola has a ring of truth to it. Coca Cola was invented in 1885 by John Pemberton, a pharmacist from Atlanta, Georgia, who made the original formula in his backyard. Pemberton’s recipe contained cocaine n the form of an extract of the coca leaf, which inspired the “Coca” part of the beverage’s name. The “Cola” comes from the kola nut (which contains caffeine, another stimulant).

Take a look at some reactions, right here: