London, Europe Brief News – American billionaire Elon Musk said he has secured a further $7.1 billion in backing for his proposed acquisition of Twitter.
Among the backers listed on the filing are Saudi Arabia’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal, a current Twitter investor, who promised to commit a total of $1.9 billion worth of shares to back Musk’s proposed buyout.
Larry Ellison and cryptocurrency exchange Binance are also listed as backers, the latter having promised $500 million.
Other investors include renowned Silicon Valley venture firm Sequoia Capital and crypto exchange Binance.
There is still some uncertainty that Musk – also chief executive of electric carmaker Tesla and rocket company SpaceX – will pull off his planned buyout.
Musk, whose rank as the world’s richest person is tied to the value of his stake in Tesla, has said he plans to finance the purchase through a mix of loans, investments and cash.
In recent weeks, he sold about $8.5bn worth of Tesla shares, money that is expected to be used to fund the deal. He has lined up $13bn in loans from banks and is also borrowing against his Tesla holdings.
Twitter‘s user numbers grew faster than expected over the past year, after being bought by billionaire Elon Musk.
Advertising revenue has also been rising, but by less than was forecast.
Some observers have questioned Musk’s commercial judgement in buying Twitter, a platform that despite its high profile has not consistently made high returns.
In the latest quarter it made a profit of $513m (£412m) on revenues of $1.2bn.
