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Two major investment firms, Apollo Global Management and Sixth Street, have reportedly ended talks to help finance the $44 billion acquisition
Elon Musk‘s will-he-or-won’t he deal to buy Twitter, going forward again as of yesterday, is pretty big. We’re talking a $44 billion price tag. And even the richest man in the world apparently needs help footing that bill.
While he’s sold about $32 billion worth of stock in his car company Tesla over the past year to free up some cash, Musk’s fever dream of owning his favorite app still depends on major banks like Morgan Stanley and Bank of America providing $12.5 billion in leveraged loans and unsecured bonds. (Fun fact: they’re now facing significant losses if he completes the merger!) The tycoon is also looking to private equity investors to join in the takeover — and two of them reportedly just bailed.
Investment firms Apollo Global Management and Sixth Street have abandoned talks to contribute financing for Musk’s agreement, sources told Reuters. The latter was supposed to have considered a package of up to $1 billion. Reps for Apollo and Twitter did not immediately return Rolling Stone‘s requests for comment; Sixth Street declined to comment.
As ever, it feels inevitable that Musk will tweet his take, assuming the lawyers don’t break his phone. Though he might be too busy texting to tweet. Ahead of his trial in the Delaware Court of Chancery, where Twitter was suing him to make the purchase after he tried to back out of it, Musk had lots of his private messages with mega-rich colleagues aired in legal discovery. Those texts saw him encouraging Oracle CEO Larry Ellison to dump $2 billion into the deal, and some discussions about the head of cryptocurrency exchange FTX Sam Bankman-Fried potentially shelling out as much as $15 billion.
It’s possible the collapse of the Apollo and Sixth Street negotiations will send Musk back to Silicon Valley friends for their copious pocket change.
In the meantime, he’s putting a positive spin on the deal, claiming that it’s a step on the path to creating “X” or “X.com,” which he has called “the everything app.”
Musk also replied to a tweet from Blooomberg reporter Ashlee Vance that appeared to make light of his turbulent business relationships. “It’s surprising to me that @elonmusk doesn’t flex his unique ability to have a rocket hover over someone’s house more during negotiations,” she wrote.
He gamely responded: “That wouldn’t be hard to do.”
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