After a brutal month for Tesla shares, Elon Musk will no longer fund his Twitter buyout by borrowing against his Tesla ownership interest.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk announced the expiration of a series of margin loans against Tesla stock that had been part of his original financing plan to acquire Twitter. As part of the announcement, Musk committed to providing an additional $6.25 billion in equity funding, bringing his total commitment to $33.5 billion.
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Musk’s original plan to acquire Twitter involved a combination of $21 billion in personal equity and $25.5 billion in loans. $12.5 billion of those loans were secured by Musk-owned Tesla shares. Musk halved that number with a previous round of equity funding and has now restructured the deal to remove it entirely.
The move comes in response to growing pressure on its credit and Tesla stock in general. The automaker’s share price has plummeted since Musk announced its acquisition plan, losing more than 30 percent of its value over the course of a month.
It’s not clear where the additional $6.25 billion will come from, though a number of equity partners have surfaced since Musk first announced his offer. Anfang MaiMusk announced an additional $7 billion in private equity funding, including from Oracle founder Larry Ellison and Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund.
Though Musk has legally committed to taking ownership of Twitter, he has been coy about his immediate plans related to the deal. On May 13, he stated that the Twitter deal was “on hold” pending a further investigation into automated accounts on the platform. He recently asked the SEC to investigate the platform’s claims about bot accounts.
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