Todd Spangler NY Digital EditorElon Musk is getting a little help from billionaire friends for his $44 billion Twitter takeover.According to an SEC filing Thursday, Musk has secured $7.14 billion in new financing commitments for the Twitter bid, including $1 billion from Larry Ellison.
Ellison, co-founder and CTO of software giant Oracle, also sits on the board of Tesla, which Musk heads as CEO.In addition, Prince al-Waleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia committed to retain the equity he owns in Twitter — his 35 million shares are worth $1.9 billion at Musk’s buyout offer — instead of receiving a cash payout, per the filing.Musk “will continue to have… discussions with certain existing holders” of Twitter stock, including ex-CEO Jack Dorsey, to contribute their shares toward his bid, according to the filing.
Dorsey owns about 18 million Twitter shares, representing 2.4% of outstanding shares (worth $975 million at Musk’s proposed price). Click here to sign up for Variety’s free Strictly Business newsletter covering earnings, financial news, and more.Musk’s latest funding also includes $800 million from VC firm Sequoia Capital; $500 million from cryptocurrency exchange Binance.com; and $400 million from a16z, the VC firm founded by Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz.Last week, Musk disclosed sales of Tesla stock worth more than $8.4 billion, which was presumably also part of amassing funds for the Twitter deal.
Twitter’s board accepted Musk’s $54.20/share acquisition proposal on April 25. The deal is pending regulatory and shareholder approvals, which analysts don’t see as stumbling blocks.According to Musk’s May 5 filing, with the new financing commitments, he has reduced the $12.5 billion margin loans he had lined up for the.
Read more on variety.com