‘Disaster deal’: Elon Musk is the world’s richest man
Elon Musk has admitted he is paying too much for Twitter.
The 51-year-old tycoon, the world’s richest man with a £185billion fortune, is buying the social media platform for £38billion.
But asked about the price tag, the boss of electric car maker Tesla said: ‘Myself and the other investors are obviously overpaying for Twitter right now.’
The comments confirmed what many had been saying for months.
Musk’s $54.20 per share offer was around a third higher than Twitter’s price at the time, and social media firms including Facebook-owner Meta have since been hit by a devastating sell-off.
Analyst Dan Ives at wealth manager Wedbush said: ‘Musk buying Twitter is a train wreck, and he is likely overpaying by £18billion.
‘Elon got himself into a disaster deal and he finally realises the £38billion price tag is pure madness.
‘The problem for Tesla investors is that more stock sales are likely by Musk to fund this deal, which we believe will go down as one of the worst, most overpaid M&A deals in the history of the market.
‘Selling Tesla stock to fund Twitter is like trading caviar for a $2 slice of New York pizza. The easy part for Elon is buying Twitter, the hard part will be fixing it.’
But Musk struck a bullish tone on Twitter’s future, saying the microblogging site would be valued far higher in the long run.
The South African revealed he had taken a 9.2 per cent stake in Twitter in April before launching his audacious £38billion takeover.
Twitter backed his bid, but chaos ensued when Musk tried to pull out over claims about the number of fake accounts on the platform.
After months of legal wrangling, with Twitter suing Musk to force through the deal, he agreed to ‘close the transaction’ at the original price. A face-off between the two sides in a Delaware court was avoided when a judge suspended the case and gave Musk until October 28 to close the deal.
