Elon Musk has secured $46.5 billion in funds to buy Twitter Inc and is considering a takeover bid for its shares, a filing with U.S. regulators showed on Thursday.
Musk himself has pledged to put up $33.5 billion, which will include $21 billion of equity and $12.5 billion of margin loans, to finance the transaction. Twitter shares rose 1%.
Banks, including Morgan Stanley, have agreed to provide another $13 billion in secured debt against Twitter itself, according to the document.
Twitter was not immediately available for comment.
Musk’s latest move comes after Twitter failed to respond to his offer and adopted a so-called “poison pill” strategy to thwart the billionaire’s effort to buy the social media platform for $43 billion.
Musk, who describes himself as a “free speech absolutist,” has said the social media company must be privatized to grow and become a platform for free speech.
The bid from Musk, who is Twitter’s second-largest shareholder, has attracted venture capital interest in participating in a deal for the company, Reuters reported, citing people familiar with the matter.
Apollo Global Management Inc is considering ways to provide financing to any deal and is open to working with Musk or any other bidder, while Thoma Bravo told Twitter that he is exploring the possibility of submitting a bid.
Musk, an active Twitter user with more than 80 million followers on the platform, has made a number of announcements via tweets, including some that have put him at odds with US regulators.
In 2018, Musk tweeted that he had “funding secured” to take Tesla Inc. private for $420 a share, a move that led to millions of dollars in fines and forced him to step down as chairman of the electric car company to resolve claims by the US securities regulator that it defrauded investors.