In a major development that signals renewed confidence in Elon Musk’s controversial takeover of Twitter—now rebranded as X—Wall Street banks have officially sold off the last piece of debt tied to the $44 billion acquisition.
According to a source familiar with the matter, top financial institutions including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Barclays, and Mitsubishi UFJ recently sold $1.2 billion worth of loans at 98 cents on the dollar. The loan was structured with a 9.5% yield, suggesting robust investor appetite despite the platform’s rocky transition since the 2022 acquisition.
This final sale marks the end of a nearly two-year-long effort to offload a total of $13 billion in loans used to fund the Musk-led buyout. The original financing package included a $6.5 billion secured term loan, $3 billion in both secured and unsecured loans, and a $500 million revolving credit facility.
While such large-scale debt typically isn’t easy to resell, Musk’s increasing alignment with former U.S. President Donald Trump and optimistic projections for X’s revenue growth seem to have boosted investor confidence.
Just weeks ago, Morgan Stanley was reported to be offering the remaining $1.23 billion in debt at a slight discount, with fixed interest and attractive yields to appeal to buyers. That offering appears to have worked. Selling the debt at close to face value shows that Wall Street may be warming up to Musk’s bold—and often polarizing—vision for the platform.
While none of the banks involved responded to requests for comment, sources suggest that this debt offloading clears a major hurdle for X and its leadership. With the balance sheet now offloaded from lenders’ books, banks are no longer exposed to the financial risks tied to the platform’s uncertain path forward.
In a related move, Musk recently revealed that his artificial intelligence startup, xAI, has acquired X in a transaction that valued the social media giant at $33 billion. While details around the strategic synergy between xAI and X remain scarce, the move underscores Musk’s broader ambition to integrate AI across all his ventures—from cars to chatbots to social platforms.
As banks close the book on this high-stakes financial chapter, questions remain: Can Musk deliver on his promise to turn X into the “everything app”? And will this infusion of confidence translate into long-term stability for the company?
Only time will tell, but one thing is certain—Wall Street is watching closely.
