What you need to know
- Incoming Twitter owner Elon Musk reportedly agreed on a change in financing for the buyout plan.
- Musk is said to want Twitter co-founder Jack Dorsey to remain involved.
- Other big shareholders are giving their shares to the buyout.
Jack Dorsey could be back at Twitter once Elon Musk completes his buyout of the company, according to reports. Dorsey co-founded Twitter and acted as its CEO until relatively recently.
Tesla CEO Elon Musk is in the middle of a $44 billion buyout of Twitter that will take the company private. But it appears that Musk is already sounding out Dorsey for a potential role at the company once things are done and dusted. The Hollywood Reporter notes that Musk is talking to Dorsey and others about the possibility of hanging around as investors.
Musk is also in talks to bring more current Twitter shareholders, including Dorsey, on board as investors after the buyout, according to the filing. He "is having, and will continue to have, discussions with certain existing holders of common stock (including Jack Dorsey) regarding the possibility of contributing such shares of common stock to parent, at or immediately prior to the closing of the merger, in order to retain an equity investment in Twitter following completion of the merger in lieu of receiving merger consideration in the merger," the filing said. "Subject to the terms of the merger agreement, any such contribution commitments may replace portions of the financing commitments" previously reported by Musk.
The news comes as Musk also reworks the finance of the $44 billion deal. THR reports that an SEC filing has listed 19 investors that are committing shares to the deal. That, in turn, will mean that a $12.5 billion loan Musk received in order to buy Twitter will now be reduced to $6.25 billion.
The filing listed 19 investors, including existing Twitter shareholder Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Bin Abdulaziz Alsaud of Saudi Arabia, who is committing around 35 million shares of the company to retain an investment in it after Musk takes it private, as well as sovereign wealth fund Qatar Holding, a trust of Oracle Corp. co-founder Larry Ellison, and venture capital firms Sequoia Capital and Andreessen Horowitz.
Musk's buyout of Twitter will take it private, giving him the power to control how the company is run and the features that it offers. Musk has been vocal about his belief that Twitter isn't doing some things correctly and has spoken before about what he feels are issues with content moderation and its impact on what he calls free speech.
Whether the move to keep some existing investors on board will help ease the worries of some Twitter users isn't clear — Musk will surely still have the final say on anything Twitter does moving forward, regardless of this latest news.
