Billionaire Elon Musk withdrew a loan of $1 billion from his two-decade-old company ‘SpaceX’ around the same time he was acquiring Twitter (now called X) for $44 billion, according to a report published by the Wall Street Journal.
Last October, SpaceX approved the $1 billion loan which was backed by some of Elon Musk’s SpaceX stock. He drew all of it down in the same month he took ownership of Twitter.
Musk has had arrangements with banks to borrow against his shares in his companies including Tesla, while SpaceX has served as his lender, Reuters reported, citing WSJ report.
It added that paying for Twitter complicated Elon Musk’s financial situation. As of March, Elon Musk is SpaceX’s largest shareholder with a 42% stake and almost 79% of its voting power.
SpaceX had $4.7 billion in cash and securities on hand at the end of last year, the paper said, citing documents, as per Reuters report.
Elon Musk sold a massive chunk of his Tesla shares in 2022, both before and after the Twitter deal, bringing his total sales to about $40 billion which frustrated investors in the EV maker.
In April 2023, Tesla disclosed that it had further tightened rules around Musk using his stake in the company to borrow money, according to the WSJ report. Additionally, Musk is also a co-founder of brain-chip startup Neuralink.
Meanwhile, in December 2022, Ross Gerber, a shareholder in Twitter and Tesla, said that he was approached to put more money into the social media platform. Elon Musk’s team had reached out for potential new investment for Twitter Inc. at the same price as the original $44 billion deal.
At the same time, Musk sold more than $3.5 billion worth of Tesla Inc. stock in the second round of sales since buying Twitter Inc. He sold nearly 22 million Tesla shares over a three-day period ended Dec. 14, according to a regulatory disclosure.
(With inputs from agencies)
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Updated: 06 Sep 2023, 11:01 AM IST
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