Tesla Inc. CEO Elon Musk says he’s secured $46.5 billion in funding for a takeover of Twitter Inc. However greater than two-thirds of that’s both coming from his personal pocket or borrowing in opposition to his Tesla shares.
Musk’s submitting with the U.S. Securities and Trade Fee on Thursday particulars $25.5 billion in debt financing from Morgan Stanley and different monetary establishments, together with margin loans backed by his fairness stake in Tesla. It additionally contains $21 billion in fairness financing to be supplied by Musk himself.
Musk presently has about $three billion in money or different considerably liquid belongings after spending $2.6 billion shopping for a 9.1 p.c stake in Twitter in latest months, in keeping with Bloomberg estimates. His different holdings are tied up in Tesla inventory — about $184 billion price — and his possession of intently held Area Exploration Applied sciences Corp.
The massive query is whether or not Musk would contemplate promoting a part of his stake in certainly one of his prized firms to accumulate Twitter.
Musk would want to pledge about 58.7 million Tesla shares to safe the $12.5 billion margin mortgage facility included within the debt financing. That will deliver the whole proportion of shares he’s pledged to about 85 p.c of his holdings. The margin mortgage facility paperwork do enable Musk to promote his unpledged Tesla shares.
The unpledged shares are price greater than $25 billion, so if he bought virtually all of them, it’d be sufficient to cowl the $21 billion in fairness financing, after taxes, coupled with the money he has now.
Alternately, Musk might discover companions to contribute to his fairness financing. However one factor’s for positive: The thriller over how Musk will fund his bid was solely partially solved at present.
Musk and Jared Birchall, the managing director of Musk’s household workplace, didn’t instantly reply to a request for touch upon how Musk plans to finance the $21 billion. Shares of Tesla pared early positive aspects of as a lot as 12 p.c, buying and selling up 6.four p.c to $1,040.68 as of 12:47 p.m. in New York.
