Investors help finance Elon Musk's Twitter takeover

Yahoo Finance’s Dan Howley reports that Elon Musk has secured $7 billion in financing from major investors including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison for his Twitter takeover.

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- It's a Thursday. So there must be more news on Elon Musk's push to buy Twitter. The billionaire Tesla CEO is shopping around for cash to fund the deal. He came up with a filing this morning in which he said he received letters from some 19 investors who had promised $7.1 billion in financing. We also got a report that he would sit in the CEO seat, at least temporarily, at Twitter. That coming to us from CNBC. Our Dan Howley is here with more on all of this. So much to talk about. The financing is quite interesting in who is on that list.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah. We have a Saudi Prince. We have Larry Ellison dropping just a cool billion with a B. Also have Binance coming in there. And so apparently his margin loan now is sliced in half. So I think the bigger news outside of the fact that he now has to raise less money on his own is this CEO news, just being the temporary CEO.

And there was the idea that when he took over, he was going to try to change things. He was going to be very hands on. At least that's the way it's being portrayed by him, right, that he's going to make all these moves. He's going to make all these calls. But now that it seems to be coming out, not officially yet, but that it's being reported that he's going to be the temporary CEO, I mean, if I'm a Tesla shareholder, I'm thinking, well, where does that leave me? Aren't you supposed to be working on those new cars that they're supposed to be out a while ago and they're not?

So, I mean, I think it starts to-- at a point, he becomes too stretched. I don't care who he is. At a certain point, it becomes too much. And I think that being temporary CEO of Twitter-- maybe it's just for the time that they're private, and then they go public and he just steps away. But, I mean, I think that's really a big decision on his part.

- I love the Larry Ellison mentioned. I'm glad you mentioned that. Larry Ellison and Elon are close friends. And they really have been. He sits on the Tesla board. And it was 2018 that Ellison bought 3 million shares in Tesla. That now is now 15 million shares because of the five for one stock split a couple-- I believe it was in August 2020. That stake is now valued at about a little over $14 billion. Just one guy, one billionaire helping out another one.

DAN HOWLEY: Yeah. I mean, look, what's wrong with that, right? Nothing.

- Well, remember Ellison also tried to get a piece of TikTok if you remember that situation. So now he's getting-- I mean, if you're comparing TikTok and Twitter this point--

- It doesn't compare.

- Yeah. Let's not.

- Great algorithm versus an algorithm that needs work. And also when you think about one of the other players in this, Binance too, what does that signal about the opportunity for cryptocurrency as payment within Twitter in a future where Elon Musk is now trying to right the ship, if you will?

DAN HOWLEY: Well, I mean, obviously he is very much into crypto. He was taking some payments, or had invested part of Tesla into Bitcoin. But, I mean, it is interesting because he's very much into decentralized currency and crypto. But there's still that whole environmental issue I think. Not I think. I know. And his whole go with SpaceX and Tesla is Tesla is about saving the world. SpaceX is for when we inevitably don't save the world and have to go to Mars.

So the idea that he's constantly in bed with crypto is very strange just because of the environmental impact and then these are his other two companies where he's supposed to be helping that. But Yeah. I mean, it really does show that I think there's going to be a lot more-- some form of crypto involvement. That's not to say that, obviously, crypto players weren't really big there already. Jack Dorsey, the co-founder and former CEO now, huge into crypto.

- Dan, I have seven seconds left here. Are you still off social media? Follow up from yesterday.

DAN HOWLEY: I'm trying. I'm trying so hard.

- Oh, wait. So you're trying?

DAN HOWLEY: I still have my limiter. I still have my limiter on my Instagram. I'm not using Twitter at home.

- All right. Stay strong. Stay strong. Dan Howley, thanks so much. Appreciate you.