Binance Backs Elon Musk's Twitter Acquisition Bid With $500M

Binance is backing Elon Musk's Twitter takeover bid, along with Sequoia, a16z, Fidelity, Qatar, and Larry Ellison.

By Liam J. Kelly

3 min read

Binance, the world's largest cryptocurrency exchange, has committed $500 million to Elon Musk's $44 billion bid to acquire Twitter, according to an updated 13D filing with the SEC.

Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao took to Twitter to share the news, calling it "a small contribution to the cause."

The filing indicates that Sequoia Capital ($800 million), Andreessen Horowitz ($400 million), Qatar Holding ($375 million), Fidelity ($316 million), DFJ ($100 million), and other notable investors also committed funds to the Tesla chief's acquisition plans. The largest investor, Larry Ellison, put in $1 billion.

The total backing is roughly $7.1 billion from this list of investors.

A Schedule 13D must be filed with the SEC whenever an entity, in this case Musk, acquires more than 5% of a company.

List of equity investors backing Musk's Twitter bid. Source: SEC.

Not shown in the above table is Saudi Arabian billionaire Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, as his commitment is in the form of Twitter shares. He has committed 34,948,975 TWTR shares valued at $54.20.

Elon Musk, Twitter, and Crypto

With most crypto chatter happening on the social media platform, it's no surprise that Web3 enthusiasts have been watching Musk's move to acquire Twitter closely.

The acquisition saga began on April 4, with Musk first buying a 9.2% stake in the company. Shortly after, he was added to the company's board of directors (only to relinquish the move just days later).

He eventually made an offer to buy the company outright for an initial bid of $43 billion. And on April  25, Twitter eventually accepted the slightly higher offer of $44 billion.

"Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated," Musk said in a statement following the accepted offer, adding: "Twitter has tremendous potential—I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it."

Brian Armstrong, CEO of Coinbase, also chimed in saying that "Elon buying Twitter is a great win for free speech, and probably changes the trajectory of the world more than most people realize."

As for Musk's exact plans for unlocking Twitter's "tremendous potential," he's suggested introducing an edit button, making Twitter's code open-source, and eliminating the spambots that plague the platform.

It may also mean the platform would continue to add more crypto-native tools too.

The idea of integrating more crypto components is particularly important to Dogecoin holders, as the world's richest man has also become the sort of face of the popular canine cryptocurrency. During a TED event back on April 14, he hinted at adding DOGE for payments for Twitter's premium Blue subscription service.

It remains to be seen how any of these ideas would manifest on Twitter. For now, enthusiasts may simply be content with the sheer spectacle of the internet's town hall changing guard.

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