Elon Musk closed his Twitter deal yesterday as confirmed today via SEC filing to delist its stock. Still no filing that Elon sold Tesla to cover his shortfall. If not, did he get it from Tesla?
Tesla has not issued the bonds as yet, and we can know that because it has not filed an SEC registration to do so. Since Tesla is publicly traded it is required to report all such material events.
My sense is that Elon's transaction devolved into chaos over the months he was trying to blow up the deal, spooking investors as well as his bankers as interest rates spiked alarmingly and potential market interest in the Twitter bonds plunged. In the final weeks when he finally realized he was not going to be able to break the deal, he sent his bankers into a panic as they tried to throw the deal together at the last minute amid dismal market conditions. They wisely elected to table that effort for the foreseeable future until business conditions and Twitter sentiment improves--good luck with that.
My idea is that this also was about the time Elon finally accepted that he had driven off sufficient outside investment to meaningfully offset his massive contribution requirement, and that's when I think he would have been scrambling to come up with alternatives like getting cash from Tesla. As I've discussed in several reports over the years, Elon panics when he's cornered and he's been known to tap his companies many times to cover shortages in his other companies.
Selling Tesla bonds would make Tesla stockholders happy since he's not selling off billions in stock and for awhile, if ever, they won't worry that he is saddling Tesla with debt since the company can easily afford it while Twitter can't afford the $13 billion in LBO debt it will have to service.
If I am right about all this there will be no stock sale filing on the Tesla stock by Elon, and soon there will be a bond registration and likely a quick drive-by bond deal by Tesla. If so, such transactions have likely been in the works for weeks.
The banks will be happy with this outcome since they will make huge fees selling such large, easily marketable Tesla bonds, plus having Elon and Tesla as large shareholders who likely won't sell Twitter equity will stabilize Twitter's fragile financial condition supporting the junky bonds the banks will have to unload later. So happy they may have done a short-term bridge loan to Elon to cover the time until the Tesla bonds are ready to sell.
Anyway, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. Hopefully we will learn more soon.
Basic question from me: if Tesla has already issued these bonds, is there anyway that we can find out?
Hi Rui Zhi Dong—thanks for reaching out.
Tesla has not issued the bonds as yet, and we can know that because it has not filed an SEC registration to do so. Since Tesla is publicly traded it is required to report all such material events.
My sense is that Elon's transaction devolved into chaos over the months he was trying to blow up the deal, spooking investors as well as his bankers as interest rates spiked alarmingly and potential market interest in the Twitter bonds plunged. In the final weeks when he finally realized he was not going to be able to break the deal, he sent his bankers into a panic as they tried to throw the deal together at the last minute amid dismal market conditions. They wisely elected to table that effort for the foreseeable future until business conditions and Twitter sentiment improves--good luck with that.
My idea is that this also was about the time Elon finally accepted that he had driven off sufficient outside investment to meaningfully offset his massive contribution requirement, and that's when I think he would have been scrambling to come up with alternatives like getting cash from Tesla. As I've discussed in several reports over the years, Elon panics when he's cornered and he's been known to tap his companies many times to cover shortages in his other companies.
Selling Tesla bonds would make Tesla stockholders happy since he's not selling off billions in stock and for awhile, if ever, they won't worry that he is saddling Tesla with debt since the company can easily afford it while Twitter can't afford the $13 billion in LBO debt it will have to service.
If I am right about all this there will be no stock sale filing on the Tesla stock by Elon, and soon there will be a bond registration and likely a quick drive-by bond deal by Tesla. If so, such transactions have likely been in the works for weeks.
The banks will be happy with this outcome since they will make huge fees selling such large, easily marketable Tesla bonds, plus having Elon and Tesla as large shareholders who likely won't sell Twitter equity will stabilize Twitter's fragile financial condition supporting the junky bonds the banks will have to unload later. So happy they may have done a short-term bridge loan to Elon to cover the time until the Tesla bonds are ready to sell.
Anyway, there's a lot going on behind the scenes. Hopefully we will learn more soon.
Thanks for the reply! Looking forward to seeing how this whole thing unfolds.
If there was a short-term bridge loan to Elon, I guess that wouldn't need to get disclosed?