Elon Musk raises an additional $7 billion in financing for Twitter deal
CNN, CNN BUSINESS
By Clare Duffy, CNN Business
Elon Musk has raised just over $7 billion in additional equity financing to help fund his purchase of Twitter.
The new investors include Oracle founder Larry Ellison, cryptocurrency platform Binance and venture capital firm Sequoia Capital, according to a new Securities and Exchange Commission disclosure Musk filed Wednesday.
Musk last month entered an agreement to buy Twitter in a deal worth roughly $44 billion, which is expected to close later this year. The deal came together quickly after Musk revealed he had lined up $46.5 billion in financing, including two debt commitment letters from Morgan Stanley and other unnamed financial institutions, and an equity commitment from himself.
Twitter stock rose more than 3% Thursday, indicating the new financing has increased investors’ confidence that the acquisition will go through.
The additional $7.14 billion in equity financing means that the margin loan Musk had secured from Morgan Stanley for the deal has been reduced from $12.5 billion to $6.25 billion, lowering the burden of the deal on the Tesla CEO himself. The new investors also include venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, Fidelity, Witkoff Capital and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund. Meanwhile, Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal will commit roughly 35 million shares of Twitter to stay invested in the company after the deal goes through, according to the filing.
“This was a smart financial and strategic move by Musk that will be well received across the board and also shows the Twitter deal is now on a glide path to get done by the end of this year,” Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said in an investor note Thursday.
The new equity financing also means Musk will now have other partners — like Ellison, who also sits on Tesla’s board, and leaders at Binance and Andreessen Horowitz — to answer to as he seeks to transform the social media platform once the deal is completed.
Andreessen Horowitz cofounder and general partner Ben Horowitz said on Twitter Thursday that the firm invested $400 million into the deal because it believes Musk can finally make Twitter “what it was meant to be.”
“While Twitter has great promise as a public square, it suffers from a myriad of difficult issues ranging from bots to abuse to censorship,” Horowitz said. “Being a public company solely reliant on an advertising business model exacerbates all of these.”
Twitter founder Jack Dorsey responded to Horowitz’s comments on Twitter, saying, “This is true. it needs cover for a while.” Questions remain about whether Dorsey might also join Musk as an investor or return to Twitter in a leadership capacity following Musk’s takeover.
Dorsey stepped down as Twitter CEO last fall and is expected to leave its board this month, but has expressed optimism about Musk’s plans for the company.
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CNN’s Brian Fung contributed to this report.
