Elon Musk secures financing for Twitter hostile takeover

Elon Musk has secured $46.5 billion in financing to buy Twitter Inc as the billionaire continues to pursue a hostile takeover of the social media platform. 

As reported last week by Frontline News, Twitter’s Board of Directors tried to stop Musk from acquiring the company by using a “poison pill” strategy. This move involves offering fresh shares to the public at a discounted price, thereby diluting Musk’s shares and making it very costly for him to purchase the company. The board has said it will initiate the plan if Musk acquires over 15% of the company.   

Now, the world’s richest man has secured $25.5 billion from a Morgan Stanley-led bank group, in addition to his own $21 billion which Musk plans to pay out of pocket. 

Speculation is that Musk will use the money to initiate a tender offer and buy shares from shareholders directly. The Tesla CEO appeared to signal as much with a cryptic tweet last week which read “Love me tender”.  

Shark Tank investor Kevin O’Leary said that Musk may be Twitter’s only way out of a bleak economic future. 

In an interview with CNBC’s Andrew Sorkin on Friday, O’Leary said Twitter “is the most miserable investment you could have put your dollars into in social media. It has totally lagged all its other competitors.” 

“The best way to look at this is, you gave them a decade, why not get the whacking stick out and just start all over again?” O’Leary suggested. “And that’s what Elon Musk is proposing.” 

Twitter is seen by many as a battleground for free speech, which Musk has vowed to bring to the platform. 

“The biggest risk for shareholders here, whether you believe in the free speech issue or not, is if Musk goes away,” O’Leary continued. “Then they’re back in the same miserable place they are now… When you start to try and figure out who should have a voice and who shouldn’t, you’re stepping on the basic principles of free speech in America. And that really doesn’t sit well with a majority of the population.”