Elon Musk Commits $33.5 Billion to Twitter Acquisition Bid

Elon Musk, the billionaire CEO of electric automaker Tesla, will increase his personal commitment in his Twitter takeover bid to $33.5 billion, according to an SEC filing dated May 24.

The revised financing plan would provide an additional $6.25 billion in equity for the buyout—an amount that would be enough to liquidate the same amount of margin loans against Tesla stock that was already reduced earlier this month.

That would bring the equity financing component of the deal to $33.5 billion, up from the $27.25 billion Musk disclosed earlier in May.

According to the statement, the Tesla chief is also in talks with “certain existing holders,” including Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, to help finance the deal that would see the social media giant become a private company.

The Tesla CEO expressed his commitment to completing the deal—which is currently on hold, as Musk previously said that he will not go forward with the acquisition until Twitter provides more information on the number of spambots and fake accounts on the platform, in a separate letter to investors backing the buyout.

Twitter shares jumped 5.5% to $39.22 in after-market trading on Wednesday, building on a 3.9% rise during regular trading.

Twitter’s shareholder meeting

Twitter, meanwhile, held its shareholder meeting on Wednesday. As reported by Associate Press, CEO Parag Agrawal “explicitly” said during the meeting that executives would not answer any questions on Musk’s buyout bid.

Still, “shareholders raising proposals for a vote frequently invoked his name,” per the report. Some of those votes revolved around free speech and content policies—concerns that Musk highlighted at earlier stages of his bid.

In other news, Dorsey, in an expected move, has departed Twitter’s board of directors effective Wednesday. Dorsey, currently the CEO of Block (formerly known as Square), stepped down as Twitter’s CEO in November 2021 but remained on the company’s board until the company’s 2022 shareholders’ meeting..

Musk’s Twitter takeover plans

Elon Musk first revealed his interest in buying Twitter and making the company private in April this year. On April 25, Twitter’s board accepted the billionaire’s $44 billion takeover bid, with crypto exchange Binance and several other prominent investors pledging financial backing to the acquisition.

Some of Musk’s plans for Twitter include making the social media platform’s code open source, introducing an edit button, and fighting spambots and fake accounts promoting scam crypto giveaways.

Musk also floated the idea of adding the popular meme cryptocurrency Dogecoin (DOGE) as a payment option for users of Twitter’s premium subscription service Twitter Blue, and suggested that should he succeed with the takeover, Twitter could become a “super app” similar to China’s WeChat, incorporating in-app payments. Were he to own Twitter, he tweeted, it would be “geared towards the middle 80% of the population, so technically the far left and far right would probably be dissatisfied.”

Earlier this month, the deal, however, was put “temporarily on hold” after Musk said he wanted to verify reports that up to 5% of Twitter users were “spam/fake accounts.”

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