Elon Musk has listed 18 investors who have committed to collectively stump up more than $7 billion worth of equity to help fund his Twitter takeover.
In a filing on Thursday, the world’s richest man said that Oracle Corp co-founder Larry Ellison’s trust will invest $1 billion towards the $44 billion purchase of the social-media platform.
Musk said he had also received equity commitment letters from investors including Sequoia Capital ($800m) and Brookfield ($250m) for financing of $7.14 billion.
Other investors listed included Qatari Holding ($375m) and NYC real estate investor Steve Witkoff ($100m).
The filing also listed Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud as having committed 34,948,975 Twitter Inc shares ‘in order to retain an equity investment in Twitter following completion of the Merger,’ the filing said. Prince Alwaleed initially opposed the buyout.
The move comes as Musk’s margin loan was reduced to $6.25 billion from $12.5 billion announced earlier, the filing revealed.
Musk will continue to hold talks with existing holders of Twitter, including the company’s former chief Jack Dorsey, to contribute shares to the proposed acquisition, the filing showed.
It was reported last week that Musk was in talks with large investment firms and high net-worth individuals about taking on more financing for his Twitter acquisition and tying up less of his wealth in the deal.
Twitter stock soared to $50.17 per share in pre-trading on Thursday following Musk’s investor announcement. The tech tycoon has agreed to purchase Twitter for $54.20 per share, a 38 percent premium over the closing price on April 1 which was the last trading day before he disclosed his approximately 9 percent stake in the platform.
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Elon Musk has listed 18 investors who have committed to collectively stump up more than $7billion worth of equity to help fund his Twitter takeover. The billionaire and his mother, Maye Musk, are pictured Monday night at the Met Gala in New York City
Twitter stock was on the rise in wake of Musk’s investment news. The platform closed at $49.06 per share on Wednesday
Twitter stock soared to $50.17 per share in pre-trading on Thursday
Prince Alwaleed, who initially tried to block Musk’s Twitter buyout, took to the platform Thursday to give a strong endorsement for the Tesla CEO.
‘Great to connect with you my “new” friend @elonmusk,’ he wrote. ‘I believe you will be an excellent leader for @Twitter to propel & maximise its great potential.
‘@Kingdom_KHC & I look forward to roll our ~$1.9bn in the “new” @Twitter and join you on this exciting journey.’
The Saudi Arabian royal, who is a major shareholder in the tech giant, rejected the SpaceX founder’s $41billion offer to purchase the platform in mid-April, alleging the amount was not ‘close to the intrinsic value of Twitter given its growth prospects.’
Prince Alwaleed, who initially tried to block Musk’s Twitter buyout, took to the platform Thursday to give a strong endorsement for the Tesla CEO
The Saudi Arabian royal, who is a major shareholder in the tech giant, rejected the SpaceX founder’s $41billion offer to purchase the platform in mid-April, alleging the amount was not ‘close to the intrinsic value of Twitter given its growth prospects’
Musk hit back, questioning the amount of Prince’s stake in the platform and his views on free speech
‘Being one of the largest & long-term shareholders of Twitter, @Kingdom_KHC & I reject this offer,’ he tweeted on April 14. KHC is the holding company bin Talal operates.
He also shared a grab of a tweet from 2015, in which he said Kingdom KHC had upped its stake in Twitter to 5.7 percent. It is unclear how much of the firm owns.
Musk hit back, saying: ‘Interesting. Just two questions, if I may. How much of Twitter does the Kingdom own, directly & indirectly? What are the Kingdom’s views on journalistic freedom of speech?’
The billionaire’s tweet seemingly went unanswered until Thursday when the prince revealed his excitement to work with Musk.
The filing also listed Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud (pictured in 2005) as having committed 34,948,975 Twitter Inc shares ‘in order to retain an equity investment in Twitter following completion of the Merger’
Musk agreed to a $44 billion takeover deal with the Twitter board last month and has seemingly been working to secure necessary funding.
Last week he sold $8.5 billion worth of Tesla shares, which was presumably in order to fund his $21billion cash commitment in the deal.
Now, he has obtained more than a dozen investors to help close the deal.
Lawrence J. Ellison Revocable Trust
Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle Corp, has agreed to invest $1billion towards Musk’s Twitter buyout, the largest contribution of all 18 investors the Tesla CEO has secured.
Ellison, 77, who is the ninth richest person in the world with a net worth of approximately $119.5billion, is known for his extravagant spending.
He once bought 98 percent of the Hawaiian island of Lanai, spent $194million on a yacht and invested hundreds of millions of dollars into luxury real estate in Malibu, California, Investopedia reported.
The software giant CEO also built an estate in California modeled after 16th-century Japanese feudal architecture.
In addition to owning 40 percent of Oracle, Ellison has stake in Tesla, NetSuite and Leapfrog Enterprises.
Larry Ellison (pictured in 2015), CEO of Oracle Corp, has agreed to invest $1billion towards the Twitter buyout, the largest contribution of all 18 investors Musk has secured
Musk has several ideas for changes to the social media platform such as improving the free speech principles of the site. He also said he was looking forward to ‘enhancing the product with new features’.
His takeover is expected to be completed later this year.
The Tesla and SpaceX boss has said he also wants to ‘authenticate all humans,’ enhance the platform with new features and make the algorithms open source to increase trust.
He has expressed support for a tool to edit already posted tweets – something Twitter had previously confirmed was already in development.
In tweets which were subsequently deleted, Musk suggested changes to Twitter Blue premium subscription service, including slashing its price, banning advertising and giving an option to pay in the cryptocurrency dogecoin.
Some have raised concerns that Musk’s support of absolute free speech could mean a loosening of content restrictions.
Musk said on Tuesday Twitter Inc might charge a ‘slight’ fee for commercial and government users, part of the billionaire entrepreneur’s push to grow revenue which has lagged behind larger rivals like Meta Platforms Inc’s Facebook.
‘Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users,’ Musk said in a tweet. ‘Some revenue is better than none!’ he added in another tweet.
Last week, it was reported that Musk told banks he would develop new ways to monetize tweets and crack down on executive pay to slash costs at the social media platform company.
Musk also told the banks he planned to develop features to grow business revenue, including new ways to make money out of tweets that contain important information or go viral, sources told Reuters.
At the annual Met Gala in New York on Monday, Musk said the reach of Twitter was currently only ‘niche,’ and he would want a much bigger percentage of the country to be on it.
