When Elon Musk bought Twitter last week for $44 billion, he accomplished it with the help of bank loans and shareholders who agreed to rollover their interest in exchange for a stake in the new private company.
That means that Twitter has a new line up of top investors, as the company’s shares are no longer public.
Meet the second largest investor in the new company:
This Saudi prince moved almost 35 million shares of Twitter through the Kingdom Holding Co., worth almost $2 billion. In May Alwaleed voiced his approval of a Musk takeover, saying he would make “an excellent leader.” Alwaleed tweeted his intention to partner with Musk last week.
Also on the list:
Jack Dorsey is Twitter’s co-founder and former CEO. Dorsey rolled over 18 million shares, or about 2.4% of the public company, worth just less than $1 billion at the merger price. This hands Dorsey shares of Musk’s X Holdings I Inc., which controls Twitter. As talks with Musk progressed, Dorsey made statements about Wall Street owning Twitter, and that taking it private was the “correct” step.
Also:
A subsidiary of the sovereign wealth fund of Qatar contributed $375 million in exchange for shares of Musk’s holding company.
On Monday, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn) called for an immediate investigation into the national security implications of Saudi Arabia’s stake in Twitter since the Musk takeover.
Murphy wrote to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, known as CFIUS. The committee is led by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
The committee is responsible for reviewing transactions that could result in a U.S. business’ being controlled by a foreign entity, Murphy said, adding that CFIUS also must review noncontrolling foreign investments in some U.S. businesses that have sensitive personal data about U.S. citizens.
“Setting aside the vast stores of data that Twitter has collected on American citizens,” he said, “any potential that Twitter’s foreign ownership will result in increased censorship, misinformation, or political violence is a grave national security concern.”
