Elon Musk has been oddly quiet ever since his successful takeover bid for Twitter. The latest in his social media escapades seems to have been shoring up investments to fund his $44 billion purchase.

Today, in a new filing with the SEC, it was revealed that Musk has now raised more than $7 billion in funding commitments from a range of partners, including Sequoia Capital, Binance, Oracle Chief Larry Ellison, and Saudi Prince Alwaleed. From this small but rather impressive list, Larry Ellison is currently the biggest individual contributor, while also being one of the board directors at Tesla. At one point, he came dangerously close to being the US owner of TikTok.

Gathering Dough

Ellison also has good relations with former US President Donald Trump, which is either purely coincidental or hugely relevant, depending on your perspective. The additional funding commitments from legitimate high-rollers like these help ensure Musk that he can go ahead with his plans, with these contributors also acting as equity partners, meaning that they too would benefit from all profits.

This will be difficult. Even before Musk stepped into the fray, Twitter has long struggled to boost its revenue and has been working hard to refine its business elements to meet steep requirements set by shareholder groups. Most market analysts doubt that Twitter can double back now. Let alone become a bigger money-maker. Musk has also flagged cutting ads entirely, which is essentially cutting off about 98% of Twitter’s income generation.

As he moves to make Twitter a haven of ‘Free Speech’, Musk has also provided some inklings as to his plans. In some missives and brief notes, Musk appears to want to replace ads by temporarily making Twitter private, before launching a second IPO, then reintroducing ads later on. Such a plan has received tacit endorsement from former CEO Jack Dorsey, who agrees that the company’s reliance on ads has indeed impeded its growth.

It’s an interesting proposal. Given the number of investments Musk has secured thus far, it does sort of point out that he at least has some sort of plan to better Twitter’s monetization. As influential and revolutionary as he is, investors don’t just put heaps of money into someone’s pockets just to show support for their whimsies. This analogy is what makes this whole takeover interesting – externally, it looks like a simple horse game for Musk, but upon closer inspections, one could also easily tell that Musk is passionate about his vision for what Twitter should be. However, given his stances on moderation and ad reliance, his plans do seem to lack a business focus, which only further paints the image that his takeover of Twitter is just another act of a rich guy flaunting his money.

Again, it’s highly unlikely that this is all just to pass time for Elon. While he has pointed to some initial strategies to begin Twitter’s ‘Reformation’, a complete overhaul would require longer-term strategies that include improved subscriptions, selling Tweet embeds, and other unique Musk-based plans.

The Wrap 

Earlier this week, Musk did share this. It would seem that he’s not opposed to the idea of a new subscription model that won’t be applied to regular users. While there are still very few details to go with, some information is still better than none, pointing out that Musk is at least placing some direction for Twitter’s future. At most, expect job cuts and program changes, as well as a significant shift in Twitter’s focus within this initial transitory period.

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Sources

https://bit.ly/3LUa4GG