Elon Musk pledges more equity to fund Twitter deal, scraps margin loan

Elon Musk on Wednesday pledged an additional $6.25 billion in equity financing to fund the $44-billion offer for Twitter Inc, reducing the billionaire’s margin loan against his Tesla Inc shares to zero.

The disclosure made in a regulatory filing on Wednesday signaled Musk is working to complete the deal even though he had last week linked its progress to Twitter presenting proof that spam bots accounted for less than 5% of the total users.

While doubting that spam bots accounted for at least 20% of the users, the world’s richest man and Tesla top boss had suggested he could seek a lower price for the social media company.

Musk said on Wednesday he was also in talks with shareholders, including Jack Dorsey, for additional financing commitments to fund the deal.

Twitter shares jumped around 6% to $39.15 in extended trading. Musk could not be immediately reached for comment.

He initially took a $12.5-billion margin loan, but earlier this month reduced it to $6.25 billion after bringing in co-investors.

Discover the stories of your interest



In April, Musk had lined up $46.5 billion in debt and equity financing to buy Twitter, with Musk himself committing $33.5 billion.

After Musk’s offer, Twitter’s board initially voted to adopt a poison pill that limited his ability to raise his stake, but later voted unanimously to accept his buyout offer.

Twitter last week said it was committed to the deal at the agreed price of $54.20. Separately, at an annual shareholder meeting on Wednesday, Twitter investors blocked the re-election of an ally of Musk to its board.

(Reporting by Eva Mathews and Richard Rohan Francis in Bengaluru; Editing by Arun Koyyur)

Stay on top of technology and startup news that matters. Subscribe to our daily newsletter for the latest and must-read tech news, delivered straight to your inbox.

For all the latest Technology News Click Here 

Read original article here

Denial of responsibility! TechAI is an automatic aggregator around the global media. All the content are available free on Internet. We have just arranged it in one platform for educational purpose only. In each content, the hyperlink to the primary source is specified. All trademarks belong to their rightful owners, all materials to their authors. If you are the owner of the content and do not want us to publish your materials on our website, please contact us by email – [email protected]. The content will be deleted within 24 hours.