Billionaire Elon Musk has strengthened his stake in his offer to buy Twitter, pledging more than $ 7 billion in commitments from a number of investors, including such heavyweight Silicon Valley players as Oracle co-founder Larry Allison.
A statement Thursday also said Musk was in talks with other parties, including former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who is the second largest single stakeholder in the company after Musk.
Other investors include the Sequoia Capital Fund, which pledged $ 800 million, and VyCapital, which pledged $ 700 million, according to a statement to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday. But Allison, who is also a member of Tesla’s board of directors, is making the largest contribution, pegged to $ 1 billion.
Technology venture capitalist Ben Horowitz said his firm, known as Andreessen Horowitz or a16z, is investing $ 400 million because it believes in “Mask’s brilliance to finally make it what it was meant to be”.
“Although Twitter has great potential as a public space, it suffers from many complex problems, ranging from bots and abuse to censorship,” Horowitz wrote on Thursday. “Being a public company that depends only on the advertising business model, it all gets worse.”
Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz Alsaud has promised 35 million Twitter shares in support of Mask, the statement said.
Musk has shown in previous regulatory documents that this is the case sold shares worth about $ 8.5 billion at Tesla to help fund the purchase. Musk later tweeted that he did not plan any further sales of the company’s shares, which means he will need external commitments to help fund A $ 44 billion deal.
Due to new funding named in the SEC filing on Thursday, Musk cut margin loans of $ 12.5 billion under its Tesla shares to half to $ 6.25 billion. The deal is also now funded by $ 27.25 billion in cash and stocks compared to $ 21 billion.
Shares of Twitter Inc. remained below $ 54.20 per share Mask because on Wall Street there are still doubts about whether the deal will be realized.
A new round of funding has pushed Tesla’s share price to what Musk is paying, with shares jumping nearly 4% on the opening call to $ 50.85.
“In this high-stakes poker game, Allison and an impressive fan list will withdraw most of Tesla’s stock as Mask’s leverage now becomes less difficult,” wrote analyst Dan Ives, who follows Twitter for Wedbush. “It has been a smart financial and strategic move by Mask that will be well received by all and also shows that the deal with Twitter is now on a slippery slope to complete.”
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