Elon Musk adds investors to help fund Twitter deal

In numerous conversations over the last several days, Elon Musk began making promises about what he could do with Twitter.

Musk, the world’s richest man, told potential investors that he could double the number of users on the platform to more than 500 million by 2025, four people briefed on the conversations said. Not only that, he said, he could more than double Twitter’s revenue by that date and bring tens of millions of paying subscribers to the service, two of the people said.

Musk added that investors would make a handsome return if they bought into his pitch. And he told them that he would take charge of Twitter, at least for a time, as its chief executive.

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Investors bought in. On Thursday, Musk revealed that he had raised around $7 billion from 18 entities to help fund his blockbuster $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. The investors were a mix of Musk’s Silicon Valley friends — including venture capital firms such as Andreessen Horowitz and tech moguls like Larry Ellison — as well as cryptocurrency companies, family offices, sovereign wealth funds, property firms and mutual-fund companies.

While many traditional private equity firms passed on participating because of concerns over Musk’s business plans for Twitter, Silicon Valley investors and others clamored to join the financing, people with knowledge of the situation said. The overriding reason was their faith in Musk, they said.

“We believe in Elon’s brilliance to finally make it what it was meant to be,” Ben Horowitz, a founder of Andreessen Horowitz, tweeted about Musk’s takeover of Twitter. Horowitz's firm contributed $400 million.

The new funding commitments were a sign that Musk, who leads electric carmaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX, was continuing to figure out his plans for Twitter.

The new funds could give investors more confidence that Musk’s deal for Twitter will close. Some investors had bet against that likelihood, given Musk’s unpredictable nature and how much capital he may personally be on the hook for.

“This was a smart financial and strategic move by Musk that will be well received across the board,” said Daniel Ives, a managing director and analyst at the investment firm Wedbush.