When it comes to making money and developing new features, he reportedly told banks that he would develop “new ways to make money out of tweets that contain important information or go viral,” the outlet noted. Musk purportedly said this could include charging third-party websites for embedding or quoting tweets from verified Twitter accounts.
Meanwhile, Bloomberg stated that another potential idea floated to banks was that influencers and celebrities needed to be more active on the social media network.
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The outlet states that the billionaire’s pitch to banks was centered on his “vision” for the company and not a roadmap of commitments. And Musk apparently didn’t offer much detail on his plans for the company.
Overall, the billionaire has provided few specifics in public about his plans for the company apart from his vague pledges to introduce new features, make the social network’s algorithms open-source, get rid of spambots, and authenticate “all humans.” In recent days, he has focused much of his energy on bullying Twitter employees.
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As part of the deal, Musk has agreed to come up with $21 billion in cash on his own. Late Thursday, the Securities and Exchange Commission published filings revealing that he had sold about $4 billion in Tesla stock over two days this week. Selling Tesla stock is one of the ways Musk can round up the money for his end of the deal.
The news of Musk’s acquisition of Twitter hasn’t gone over well at Tesla, which saw its shares tank 12.2% on Tuesday, erasing more than $125 billion from its market capitalization. Investors worry that Tesla’s CEO could become distracted with his new shiny toy or even get into a fight with China over free speech issues. This would not be good for the EV company, which has significant production in the country and also considers it a key market.
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Late on Thursday, Musk tweeted that he had no plans to sell any more Tesla stock.