Elon Musk secures US$7.1b in new financing for Twitter 

ELON Musk has secured about US$7.1 billion of new financing commitments - including from billionaire Larry Ellison, a Saudi prince, and Sequoia Capital - to help fund his proposed US$44 billion takeover of Twitter. 

The equity commitments from 19 investors come as the Tesla billionaire marshals capital to bankroll one of the biggest tech industry takeovers. Musk had originally said he planned to fund the deal in part with a US$12.5 billion loan against his shares in Tesla, the electric-vehicle company he runs. The new funding will allow him to reduce by half the size of that margin loan to US$6.25 billion, making the deal less risky for both Musk and his lenders. It also slightly reduces the amount of cash Musk needs to put up personally.

CNBC reported that Musk plans to serve as chief executive officer of Twitter, at least temporarily.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, chairman of the board at Kingdom Holding Company, made the biggest contribution, agreeing to commit almost 35 million shares in Twitter - worth US$1.9 billion - to retain a stake in the company following Musk’s takeover, an amended securities filing on Thursday (May 5) morning showed. Ellison, the co-founder of Oracle who has a big stake in Tesla and a seat on its board, committed US$1 billion through his trust.

Other investors named in the filing on Thursday include the world’s largest crypto exchange, Binance Holdings, Brookfield Asset Management, Fidelity Management & Research, and Qatar Holding.

Zhao Changpeng, chief executive officer of Binance, which promised US$500 million, tweeted that it was “a small contribution to the cause”.

With the financing picture becoming clearer, the market seems to be coming around to the idea that the deal will close. The gap between Twitter’s stock price and the US$54.20 per share that Musk offered to pay for the company is narrowing to its lowest since Apr 26. 

The world’s wealthiest person reached an agreement on Apr 25 to acquire Twitter using a financing plan that has alarmed some Tesla investors. In addition to pledging tens of billions of dollars worth of his Tesla shares to support margin loans, Musk vowed to line up some US$21 billion worth of equity. That number has risen to US$27.25 billion, according to Thursday’s filing. Twitter shares rose 2.9 per cent as the market opened in New York to US$50.49. 

“In this game of high stakes poker, Ellison and the impressive list of backers will remove more of an overhang from Tesla shares as the Musk leverage of shares now becomes less onerous,” said Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush. “This was a smart financial and strategic move by Musk that will be well received across the board.”

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Musk has sold more than US$8.5 billion of Tesla stock to finance the deal. 

Musk’s latest backers includes a bevy of traditional asset managers, venture capital firms, boutique hedge funds, and one of the world’s largest pools of capital. Qatar Holding, a unit of the nation’s wealth fund, has agreed to commit US$375 million.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed previously rejected Musk’s bid, stating that it failed to come “close to the intrinsic value of Twitter”. 

Musk is also in discussions with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey on contributing some of his shares toward the acquisition.

Ellison, 77, is the richest person in the group besides Musk. The corporate software titan has a net worth of US$95.6 billion, placing him 11th on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. He is not an active Twitter user - his only tweet was a decade ago - but he does share Musk’s political views. Ellison is a major Republican donor and hosted a fundraiser for Trump in 2020.

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Marc Andreessen, who has publicly feuded with Dorsey on Twitter, has agreed to commit US$400 million via his fund A16Z. Fellow venture firm Sequoia Capital is putting up double that, with US$800 million.  

Several Tesla investors are among those committing support for Musk’s Twitter bid, including Ellison, who owns 1.45 per cent of the carmaker’s outstanding shares, and Fidelity Management & Research, which owns about 1 per cent. Both are among Tesla’s biggest investors.

Smaller investors include Witkoff Capital, the real estate-backed family office, and Cartenna Capital, a hedge fund set up by Peter Avellone, a former Millennium Management portfolio manager. BLOOMBERG