Tech billionaire Elon Musk is moving forward with his potential bid to acquire Twitter, revealing that he has lined up $46.5 billion in financing for a possible tender offer for the company.
The financing was disclosed in an SEC filing Thursday. According to Musk’s filing, the financing includes commitments from Morgan Stanley and other financial institutions. Musk has not yet decided whether he will make a tender offer for Twitter (to buy shares directly from existing investors); he may take other steps to further the proposed takeover, per the filing.
Musk “is exploring whether to commence a tender offer to acquire all of the outstanding shares of [Twitter’s] Common Stock” for $54.20 per share, “but has not determined whether to do so at this time,” according to the filing.
Last week, Musk — the CEO of Tesla and SpaceX and the wealthiest person on the planet — proposed to buy Twitter for about $43 billion in a hostile takeover, offering $54.20 per share for the social media company. Last Friday, Twitter adopted a “poison pill” plan to fend off a potential hostile takeover, designed to stop any individual or entity from amassing more than a 15% stake in the company by buying shares on the open market.
Musk is exploring whether to move forward with a tender offer for Twitter “given the lack of response by Twitter” to his previous buyout offer, according to Thursday’s filing.
“[W]e don’t believe [the financing] puts Musk any closer towards reaching a deal given: 1) our view that the board likely wants to avoid selling to Musk, and 2) the added poison pill creates a more challenging backdrop,” CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino wrote in a note Thursday. “We think Musk could look to increase his stake closer to 15% to put additional pressure on TWTR, but we think he will ultimately need to have constructive conversations with the board to be successful.”
Musk earlier this month disclosed that he had acquired about 9.2% of the shares in Twitter, making him the largest shareholder in the company. The mercurial billionaire had reached an agreement to join Twitter’s board on the condition that he amass no more than 14.9% of its shares. Musk later reversed course and decided to not join the board — before making the unsolicited overture to take Twitter private.
