Elon Musk looks to rein in Twitter pay, make money from tweets

Elon Musk told banks that agreed to help fund his $44-billion acquisition of Twitter that he could crack down on executive and board pay at the social media company in a push to slash costs, and would develop new ways to monetise tweets, three people familiar with the matter said.

Musk made the pitch to the lenders as he tried to secure debt for the buyout days after submitting his offer to Twitter on April 14, the sources said. His submission of bank commitments on April 21 were key to Twitter’s board accepting his “best and final” offer.

Musk had to convince the banks that Twitter produced enough cash flow to service the debt he sought. In the end, he clinched $13 billion in loans secured against Twitter and a $12.5-billion margin loan tied to his Tesla stock. He agreed to pay for the remainder of the consideration with his own cash.

Musk’s pitch to the banks constituted his vision rather than firm commitments, the sources said, and the exact cost cuts he will pursue once he owns Twitter remain unclear. The plan he outlined to banks was thin on detail, the sources added.

Musk has tweeted about eliminating the salaries of Twitter's board directors, which he said could result in about $3 million in cost savings. Twitter's stock-based compensation for the 12 months ending December 31, 2021 was $630 million, a 33 per cent increase from 2020, corporate filings show.

In his pitch to the banks, Musk also pointed to Twitter's gross margin, which is much lower than peers such as Meta Platforms’s Facebook and Pinterest, arguing this leaves plenty of space to run the company in a more cost-efficient way.

A Musk representative declined to comment.

Bloomberg News reported earlier that Musk specifically mentioned job cuts as part of his pitch to the banks. One of the sources said that Musk will not make decisions on job cuts until he assumes ownership of the company later this year. He went ahead with the acquisition without having access to confidential details on the company's financial performance and headcount.

Musk told the banks he also plans to develop features to grow business revenue, including new ways to make money out of tweets that contain important information or go viral, the sources said. Ideas he brought up included charging a fee when a third-party website wants to quote or embed a tweet from verified individuals or organisations.

Musk sells Tesla shares worth $8.5 bn

Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer Elon Musk sold $8.5 billion worth of shares in the electric vehicle maker, US securities filings showed, in sales likely aimed at helping finance his planned purchase of Twitter.

Musk said in a tweet that there are “no further TSLA sales planned after today”. He sold about 9.6 million shares this week, according to the filings on Thursday and Friday, equating to 5.6 per cent of his stake in the company.

It was not clear whether all of Musk’s recent Tesla share sales were reported. Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment. 

The sale came after Musk on Monday clinched a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion in cash in a transaction that will shift control of the social media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world’s richest person.