Nearly two years after Elon Musk’s acquisition, X’s business is still struggling to climb out of the deep hole it fell into under his ownership.

The $13 billion that Elon Musk borrowed to buy Twitter has turned into the worst merger-finance deal for banks since the 2008-09 financial crisis.

The seven banks involved in the deal, including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, lent the money to the billionaire’s holding company to take the social-media platform, now named X, private in October 2022. Banks that provide loans for takeovers generally sell the debt quickly to other investors to get it off their balance sheets, making money on fees.

  • Optional@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    127
    ·
    23 days ago

    At the time, Musk himself had complained that the price for Twitter was too high, but he decided to go ahead with the deal after waffling over it for a while.

    Mmmmmmmmm that’s not how I’d describe it, Marketwatch.

    • bradorsomething@ttrpg.network
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      52
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      23 days ago

      I mean, he did have to decide if he wanted to pay the money and take the company, or just pay the money, as he’d signed a solid agreement. So there was a choice.

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        35
        ·
        edit-2
        22 days ago

        In retrospect, paying the money and not taking the company might actually have been the more sound financial decision.

    • hamFoilHat@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      22 days ago

      Guess they didn’t want to say that Musk shit posted so hard that he ended up being forced to buy the company.