Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter takeover was largely financed by a secret group of wealthy investors. Those investors’ names are now public, and the list includes Jack Dorsey, Larry Ellison, and Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs.
While Elon Musk may be the wealthiest person in the world, he did not pay for his entire $44 billion hostile takeover of Twitter himself. About $14 billion that was put up by big institutional banks, and this week we learned they’re still stuck with most of that debt. Meanwhile, the other $30 billion came from Musk and an array of private investors, but since Musk took the company private, he did not have to disclose who these investors were. All we knew was that the inclusion of Saudi and Qatari oligarchs set off a national security review just before the deal closed in the fall of 2022.
But that secret list of investors was demanded by a judge in a lawsuit from jilted former employees who say they were denied severance and bonuses. Then last month, a journalists’ organization called Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press filed a motion asking that judge to unseal the list and make it public. That US District Judge Susan Illston agreed to the motion.
And now the Washington Post has obtained the full secret list of Musk’s Twitter investors. The Post article happens to be written former Chronicle reporter Trisha Thadani, who is now with the Post, so that’s a fun local angle. Though you may be more amused by Rolling Stone's writeup, with the headline "Here Are the People Who Lost Millions Backing Musk’s Twitter Takeover."
The Post has made the full court filing public, though most of these are just generically named VC or investment firms whose names will not ring a bell. (27 of them are offshoots of the mutual fund company Fidelity Investments.)
But there is one shocker on the list — pop star and business mogul Sean “Diddy” Combs. Actually, it’s his investment firm Sean Combs Capital, LLC. But since recent allegations accused Diddy of sex trafficking, battery, and sexual assault, you can see how he and Musk may be peas in a pod.
Another surprise inclusion on the list is Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey, who now seems to regret having made the deal. Saudi Arabian Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud is also on the list. The list also includes a who’s-who of Silicon Valley types who’ve gone full-on Trumper: Larry Ellison, the VC firm Andreessen Horowitz, the 8VC fund from Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale, and the crypto firm Binance.
And much like the big banks that have lost money on their involvement in the deal, apparently these secret investors have too. We mentioned that Fidelity Investments was deeply involved. According to the Post, “Fidelity said in a January filing that one of its mutual funds that had valued its stake in X at nearly $20 million in 2022 now judged it to be worth much less, at $5.6 million.”
Top image: Sean Combs is seen arriving at "Jimmy Kimmel Live" on October 30, 2023 in Los Angeles, California. (Photo by MEGA/GC Images)
