May 11, 2022

The funding, arranged by Morgan Stanley, will exceed $1 billion and may include Sixth Street Partners, among other firms, the people said. Apollo, Sixth Street and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. May 11, 2022 / 07:33 AM IST Elon Musk, founder of SpaceX and chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., speaks during a discussion at the Satellite 2020 Conference in Washington, D.C., U.S., on Monday, March 9, 2020. The event comprises important topics facing both satellite industry and end-users, and brings together a diverse group of thought leaders to share their knowledge. Apollo Global Management Inc. is in talks to lead a preferred financing for Elon Musk’s proposed buyout of Twitter Inc., according to people with knowledge of the deal. The funding, arranged by Morgan Stanley, will exceed $1 billion and may include Sixth Street Partners, among other firms, the people said. Apollo, Sixth Street and Morgan Stanley declined to comment. Shares of Twitter closed Tuesday at $47.26 apiece, with traders growing more skeptical that Musk, the chief executive officer of Tesla Inc., will complete the purchase at the $54.20 offer price. That’s despite Musk revealing last week he’s getting $7.1 billion in equity commitments from investors including Larry Ellison, Sequoia Capital and Qatar. He persuaded Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal to roll his $1.9 billion of Twitter stock into the privatized company and is seeking to do the same with Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey. It’s not clear how the preferred equity might change the existing financing proposal, which requires Musk and his partners to contribute $27.25 billion in equity to fund the $44 billion purchase, with the rest coming from junk-rated debt and a margin loan tied to Musk’s Tesla stock.