Elon Musk is serious with Twitter

In recent days, new details have emerged about the well-known American businessman Elon Musk’s plan to buy Twitter, announced last week. The information comes from some documents submitted to the financial supervisory authorities in the United States, which explain, for example, that Musk intends to take approximately 46.5 billion dollars needed to finance the acquisition.

with legacy Values About $260 billion, Elon Musk is the richest person in the world. Much of his fortune stems from stock ownership of Tesla, the well-known company that produces electric cars of which he is the founder and CEO, and from various other financial activities. To fund the purchase of Twitter, Musk could pledge a portion of his shares, but according to analysts, such a transaction could have repercussions on Tesla’s performance on the stock exchange, which is already subject to significant volatility.

In the Documents This week, investment firm Morgan Stanley instead offered to offer a series of loans totaling $25.5 billion, financing just over half of the operation Musk announced. The remaining $21 billion will be covered directly by the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX, although at the moment it is not clear what the interference with his assets will be.

After buying about 9 percent of Twitter shares in the past few weeks, Musk is currently one of the social network’s largest contributors, but he still has no control over it. He had initially indicated a willingness to serve on the board of directors, with a deal that would have prevented him from excessive ownership of 15 percent of the company’s stock. Then Musk thought about it, gave up the job and announced a few days later that he wanted to continue acquiring the company and pull it off the stock exchange, a move he considered necessary to reorganize it.

Suggestion to buy was very much unacceptable By Twitter’s board of directors, which also indicated the possibility of increasing the number of shares in order to allow some of its shareholders to acquire a larger number and prevent external acquisitions. Musk responded by saying he had a “Plan B”, but without giving details.

Part of the plan appears to be related to the possibility of a hostile takeover bid being made, i.e. addressing individual Twitter contributors directly without obtaining board approval. Such an operation could be risky for both the social network and Musk, if Twitter’s board of directors decides to block the takeover.

After submitting the new financial documents, Considered In a new sign of Musk’s somewhat serious intentions, Twitter issued a brief statement confirming that the company’s board of directors “is committed to conducting a comprehensive and in-depth review to determine what actions should be taken to protect the interests of the company and all of Twitter’s shareholders.”

The documents presented by Musk do not mention other topics besides the Morgan Stanley loan, which appears to indicate on the one hand Musk’s choice to proceed independently, and on the other hand, skeptical of other investors, who currently see more costs than benefits in the Twitter acquisition. The company has grown quite a bit in recent years, both in terms of users and value on the exchange, and to many it doesn’t seem like a good investment, especially in terms of the amount of money needed to take control.

On several occasions, Elon Musk has argued that he does not want to acquire Twitter in order to “make money,” another detail that could discourage potential investment partners. Musk believes Twitter should be a place that guarantees freedom of expression, although he has shown that in the past few days They do not have a good idea of ​​the implications It is related to this principle that all the major social networks have been dealing with for years.

On Twitter, where he has about 83 million followers, Musk has repeatedly referred to the possibility of a “give offer,” in the often suggestive way he writes his tweets. For example, posting one in reference to Giving is a nightthe novel Giving is a night Written by Francis Scott Fitzgerald, and another for Elvis Presley’s song “Love me Tender.”

_______ is the night

– Elon Musk April 20 2022

🎶 Love me giving 🎶

– Elon Musk April 16 2022

After submitting the new documents to regulatory authorities, Musk was even more outspoken, writing: “If our Twitter demo works, we’ll defeat all spam bots or die trying to do it!” Referring to the large number of fake profiles on Twitter, which are often managed by special automated programs to carry out fraud and misinformation. Musk then added that to get around the problem he intends to introduce a documentation system for “real humans.”

If our twitter show works, we’ll defeat the spam bots or die trying!

– Elon Musk April 21, 2022

It is not yet clear what developments are coming to Musk’s initiative, but many analysts are starting to take his proposal seriously, now that an investment firm has participated and there are new details about raising the money needed for the acquisition.

The next big developments may be related to Twitter’s fourth-quarter financial statement presentation, which will be held on Thursday. The data could reveal important information for shareholders who will have to assess whether Musk’s bid to buy their Twitter stock at $54.20 is profitable.