Binance, 18 Investors Commit $7.1 Billion to Elon Musk’s Twitter Takeover

Binance, the world’s largest cryptocurrency exchange in terms of daily trading volume, and 18 other equity investors committed over $7.1 billion to American billionaire Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter.

This is according to an updated Schedule 13D form filed before the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) on Wednesday.

According to the form, Binance contributed $500 million in total aggregate commitment.

However, Al Waleed bin Talal Al Saud, a Saudi Arabian royal businessman and Chairman of the Kingdom Holding Company, led the equity investments with a $1.8 billion commitment through almost 35 million shares.

Saudi’s investment is closely followed by the Lawrence J. Ellison Revocable Trust whose aggregate equity commitment stood at $1 billion.

Other Equity Investors

A.M. Management & Consulting, AH Capital Management, L.L.C. (a16z), Aliya Capital Partners LLC, and BAMCO, Inc. (Baron) invested $25 million, $400 million, $360 million and $100 million, respectively.

However, Brookfield, DFJ Growth IV Partners, LLC, Fidelity Management & Research Company LLC, Honeycomb Asset Management LP, and Key Wealth Advisors LLC also committed $250 million, $100 million, $316 million, $5 million and $30 million, respectively.

Also, Litani Ventures, Qatar Holding LLC, Sequoia Capital Fund, L.P., and Strauss Capital LLC committed $25 million, $375 million, $800 million and $150 million, respectively.

Additionally, Tresser Blvd 402 LLC (Cartenna), VyCapital and Witkoff Capital added $8.5 million, $700 million and $100 million, respectively, to the equity investment.

Binance Reacts

Reacting to the public disclosure of the equity investments, Binance Founder, Changpeng ‘CZ’ Zhao described the exchange’s investment as “a small contribution to the cause.”

A small contribution to the cause. https://t.co/xD9XZxOWfL

— CZ 🔶 Binance (@cz_binance) May 5, 2022

Late last month, Musk agreed to buy Twitter for $54.20 per share in cash in a transaction valued at approximately $44 billion.

In a statement, Twitter said Musk committed $25.5 billion in debt and margin loan financing and is also providing approximately $21.0 billion in equity.

Musk, who also co-founded SpaceX and The Boring Company, among others, said his desire to promote free speech on the social media platform is at the center of his takeover.

The billionaire, who said Twitter has “tremendous potential,” further explained that he wants to enhance Twitter “with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spam bots and authenticating all humans.”

“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 announcing the acquisition.