Billionaire Elon Musk has strengthened the equity stake of his offer to buy Twitter with commitments of more than $7 billion from a range of investors, including Silicon Valley heavy hitters like Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison.
Other investors include Sequoia Capital Fund, which pledged $800 million, and VyCapital, which pledged $700 million, according to a Thursday filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
But Mr Ellison, who is also a Tesla board member, is making the biggest contribution, pegged at $1 billion.
Saudi Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud has pledged $35 million in Twitter shares in support of Musk, according to the filing.
Musk in earlier regulatory filings revealed that he has sold roughly $8.5 billion of shares in Tesla to help fund the purchase.
Twitter will always be free for casual users, but maybe a slight cost for commercial/government users
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 3, 2022
He later tweeted that he does not plan any further sales of the company’s shares, meaning he would need outside commitments to help fund the $44 billion deal.
Because of the new funding listed in the SEC filing on Thursday, Musk will half the $12.5 billion in margin loans he was leaning on to $6.25 billion.
The transaction is now also being funded by $27.25 billion in cash and equities, up from $21 billion.
The Thursday filing also said that Musk is in ongoing talks with other parties including former Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, who is the second-largest individual stakeholder in the company after Musk.
“This was a smart financial and strategic move by Musk that will be well received across the board and also shows the Twitter deal is now on a glide path to get done by the end of this year,” wrote analyst Dan Ives who follows Twitter for Wedbush.
Shares of Twitter have remained below the per-share offering bid by Musk of $54.20 because there are still doubts on Wall Street about whether the deal will go through.
Shares of the San Francisco social media platform rose 2 per cent before the opening bell, to $50.10 dollars.
