Bulletins

Musk's Twitter funding is secured

According to a new SEC filing, Elon Musk has received commitments for $46.5 billion in funding to acquire Twitter.

Elon Musk

Elon Musk has received funding commitments from Morgan Stanley.

Photo: Yasin Ozturk/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images

Elon Musk has secured the funding he needs to acquire Twitter. Like, for real this time.

According to a new filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk has received commitments from a collection of banks led by Morgan Stanley to provide $46.5 billion to take Twitter private. Musk's first offer to Twitter was contingent on his ability to secure financing, but the filing reads, Musk's proposal "is no longer subject to financing as a result of the Reporting Person’s receipt of the financing commitments."


Given his, er, rocky history of making grand promises about having the "funding secured" to take over Tesla — promises which were later found by a court to be false — skepticism has abounded regarding Musk's ability to actually make good on his Twitter offer. Even the richest man in the world's not that liquid. Musk himself had seemed a little uncertain about the source of funding during an interview at TED the day news of his offer became public. "I have sufficient assets," he said at the time. "I mean, I can do it if possible."

Musk also used that opportunity to rewrite history about his infamous tweet about having sufficient funding to buy Tesla. The shareholder who took Musk to court over that tweet and won is now seeking a temporary restraining order to prevent Musk from continuing to make that claim.

Musk's offer to buy Twitter remains non-binding, so he can still walk away at any time. He also wrote in the filing that as Twitter's board has "not responded" to his proposal, he may pursue a tender offer, meaning he would skip the board and go directly to other shareholders seeking to buy their Twitter stock.

Meanwhile, Twitter's board has already laid out its poison pill defense against the takeover. If anyone, Musk included, acquires more than 14.9% of the company's shares, Twitter will offer all other shareholders additional stock at a discounted price. That would dilute Musk's stake and make it even more expensive for him to acquire the company.

Musk's desire to privatize Twitter is driven by his belief that the platform doesn't sufficiently allow for free speech. During his discussion at TED, Musk said that Twitter ought to allow all legal speech in the countries where it operates. That, of course, doesn't account for the fact that laws around online speech in, say, Russia, India or, more recently, Europe, are more restrictive than in the United States.

Twitter employees in particular have worried that a Musk takeover would undo the work they've done to enhance content moderation and safety on the platform in recent years. Staffers focused on ethics at the company publicly celebrated when Twitter announced Musk would no longer be joining the board.

But the ordeal is far from over — and it's only gotten more politicized. Just this week, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis threatened Twitter with a lawsuit over the board's rejection of Musk's offer. (Florida, through a state pension fund, is a Twitter shareholder.) Musk, meanwhile, is facing a suit from a different Twitter shareholder who claims Musk delayed disclosing his stake in the company so he could acquire more shares at a lower price.

Latest Bulletins

Mobile game revenue will decline for the first time in history this year, market research firm Newzoo now says in a revised outlook for the 2022 global games market. While the whole game industry is expected to contract by 4.3% — another first since Newzoo began tracking the market in 2007 — the company is predicting a 6.4% decline in mobile game spending on top of a 4.2% decline in console game spending.

Keep ReadingShow less

Amazon is planning to lay off thousands of employees, Protocol has learned, ahead of what the company has cautioned will be a slow holiday shopping season.

Keep ReadingShow less

Google agreed to pay $391.5 million and make changes to its user privacy controls as part of a settlement with a coalition of 40 state attorneys general. The coalition accused Google of misleading customers about location-tracking practices that informed ad targeting.

Keep ReadingShow less

FTX has filed for bankruptcy and the crypto company also announced that founder Sam Bankman-Fried has resigned as CEO.

Keep ReadingShow less

Salesforce recently updated its internal policies to make it easier for managers to terminate employees for performance issues without HR involvement, Protocol has learned, a move that comes as the software giant looks to shed as many as 2,500 jobs.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said fraud and scam reports comprise the top complaint it receives about virtual currencies — and that customers are finding little help from companies when it happens.

Keep ReadingShow less

Elon Musk sent his first email to Twitter staff late Wednesday, warning of a difficult economic road ahead and telling employees they need to be in office for a minimum of 40 hours per week. "Sorry that this is my first email to the whole company, but there is no way to sugarcoat the message," he began, ominously.

Keep ReadingShow less

Binance isn’t buying FTX after all. The crypto giant said Wednesday it has decided that it “will not pursue the potential acquisition” based on a “corporate due diligence” review.

Keep ReadingShow less

On Wednesday, John Kerry unveiled a plan for a new carbon credit program aimed at mobilizing private capital to help middle-income countries transition away from coal and move toward renewable energy.

Keep ReadingShow less

Meta announced it was laying off more than 11,000 employees Wednesday morning, slashing jobs in its recruiting department and refocusing its remaining team on AI discovery, ads, and its investment in the metaverse.

"I want to take accountability for these decisions and for how we got here," Mark Zuckerberg wrote in a message to employees that was also posted online. "I know this is tough for everyone, and I’m especially sorry to those impacted."

Keep ReadingShow less

Al Gore has one mission this week at COP27, and that’s to give climate negotiators what he hopes will be a critical tool to address the crisis at hand: an independent, global inventory of greenhouse gas emissions, down to the individual facility.

The Climate TRACE coalition just released the world’s most detailed inventory of global greenhouse gas emissions, which Gore, a founding member, is unveiling on Wednesday at the United Nations climate summit in Egypt.

Keep ReadingShow less

Way back in March, your friendly Protocol Climate team offered you some tips for writing a climate plan that doesn’t suck. Surely you took that advice. But if for some reason you didn’t, the United Nations has your back.

Keep ReadingShow less

Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao said Tuesday the crypto powerhouse signed a deal to acquire rival FTX.

Keep ReadingShow less

Salesforce is preparing for a major round of layoffs that could affect as many as 2,500 workers across the software vendor, Protocol has learned, in a bid to cut costs amid a new activist investor challenge and harsh economic conditions.

Keep ReadingShow less

BlockFi has introduced a new digital assets interest product for accredited investors, after previously agreeing to shut down a yield-paying crypto product that the SEC said was illegal.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Justice Department said Monday it seized $3.4 billion worth of bitcoin stolen in the 2012 hack of the Silk Road dark web marketplace.

Keep ReadingShow less

U.S. election infrastructure is exceedingly secure, and voter fraud here is so rare it’s comparable to your annual chances of getting struck by lightning. Despite this, former President Donald Trump and a long list of allies in the Republican Party have spent the last two years questioning the overall integrity of the U.S. election system. Many of those allies are now candidates themselves, and their coordinated attack on the country’s status as a democracy is not a relic of 2020. Some have already started repeating these “Big Lie” charges ahead of next week’s midterms. And the social platforms that help them spread their message have prepared few measures to stop it.

Keep ReadingShow less

The White House just laid out its climate tech priorities to reach net zero by 2050.

Keep ReadingShow less

Coinbase said Thursday that it lost more users in the third quarter. But the decline wasn’t the disastrous drop that Wall Street was expecting, and that sparked a rally in the crypto company’s shares after-hours.

Keep ReadingShow less

The Biden administration announced $9 billion in funding Wednesday to improve home efficiency, which could help support the installation of up to 500,000 heat pumps. With winter approaching and utilities warning of gas shortages, there are some major challenges facing the technology that money can be used to tackle.

Keep ReadingShow less

Block beat earnings expectations, with strong growth largely fueled by its Cash App business. Traders sent shares up more than 12% after-hours Thursday.

Keep ReadingShow less

Stripe is laying off 14% of its staff, its co-founders said Thursday, as the fintech startup must start "building differently for leaner times."

Keep ReadingShow less

Roku saw its revenue growth slow in Q3, and warned investors Wednesday that things are about to get worse: “A lot of Q4 ad campaigns are being canceled,” said Roku CEO Anthony Wood during the company’s Q4 earnings call. “We’re seeing lots of big categories pull back. Telecom, insurance … even toy marketers are planning on reducing their spending.”

Keep ReadingShow less

Green jobs and corporate climate pledges abound, but skilled sustainability professionals are scarce.

Keep ReadingShow less

Robinhood reported a drop in third-quarter revenue but also a narrower loss on Wednesday, in a sign that it might be stabilizing its business as it attempts to recover from a staggering drop in the stock and crypto trading activity that fueled its growth.

Keep ReadingShow less
Bulletins