The world's richest man always finds a way to be in the headlines. This time, his second attempt to take over the popular microblogging platform Twitter is giving financial analysts something to work on. The acquisition is stipulated to cost a whopping $44 billion, an amount the billionaire doesn't entirely agree with.
According to the Tesla CEO, he isn't impressed with the platform's overwhelming number of bots and fake accounts, which consists of a good percentage of estimated Twitter users. Musk forwarded the deal to purchase the platform on April 14 for $44 billion. According to regulatory filings, Musk sold about $8.5 billion worth of Tesla shares to fund the deal. However, on May 13, the technocrat paused the deal to evaluate the number of real Twitter users. This decision seemingly angered members of the Twitter board, leading to a round of sues and countersuits.
Despite understandable misgivings on both sides, Musk would have to go ahead with the deal after making a U-turn, and a US judge gave an ultimatum to proceed with the purchase before October 28, 2022.
Does Elon Musk Have Enough Money to Buy Twitter Now?
Elon Musk might be the richest man on Earth, but all his money isn't lying around, ready to be spent. A heavy chunk of his fortune is tied to Tesla stocks, of which he has sold more than $15 billion worth of his pile from April.
To push the deal through, the CEO would need the help of equity investors and banks. Morgan Stanley and the Bank of America are among the financial institutions that have signed a $12.5 billion loan to Musk to back the acquisition. Although there are fears that potential investors may back down, some banks have signed to back the deal.
Analysts fear Elon Musk will sell more Tesla stocks. However, the CEO has consistently mentioned his reluctance to diminish his company's stocks. At the moment, Musk is obligated to see the deal through, having committed to the judge who gave him more time to sort out the funds for the purchase.
Where will the money come from?
In a new twist, Elon Musk appears to be doing all he can to finance his move to acquire Twitter. The businessman recently launched a perfume brand called Burnt Hair. He unveiled the product on Twitter on Sunday while mentioning that the product would be coming from another of his companies, Boring Company.
The fragrance, which Musk referred to as an "omnigender product," instantly went viral on Twitter. Interestingly, a pre-order page was created for the product with a price tag of $100 a piece. He even updated his Twitter bio with the tag “perfume salesman.”
The SpaceX CEO constantly updates his followers on Twitter about the number of sales the product has gathered. Earlier today, Elon Musk announced that a racking 20,000 bottles of the fragrance had been paid for. At the current price, the revenue generated so far is about $2 million, an unbelievable feat in just 72 hours.
The businessman confessed that his reason for launching the product was to acquire Twitter, a platform where he has gathered over 108 million followers. Musk tweeted, "Please buy my perfume so I can buy Twitter."
"The counter-intuitive thing is that it’s actually gonna be a sick product!" Musk said in response to a follower who announced a purchase of 3 bottles.