The firm, which represented Twitter as Musk tried to back out of his deal to buy Twitter, received a $90 million fee for getting the deal over the finish line, according to The New York Times. Elon Musk’s Twitter alleges the payment is “unjust enrichment” and wants the fee to be returned.
Is he scraping the barrel or just short of loose change?
The interest payments on the loans he took out are $1.5 Billion. That’s not accounting for any other costs that Twitter was already on the hook for.
Coincidentally, Musk stopped paying all of the costs that Twitter was on the hook for. Rent, data centers, janitorial service, everything.
And he’s still not going to have enough money from twitter’s operations to make even the basic servicing payment on the loan.
Which is why I still think something else was going on with the Twitter sale. It doesn’t make sense for anyone financially.
Unless you imagine it’s a bank giveaway to Musk, who will count Twitter as a loss carry forward for years to come when it goes bellyup.
I was, and remain, 100% convinced Musk will never pay those loans. The Saudi, etc authoritarians who bankrolled him knew it was a payment to kill Twitter. The west may have forgotten the Arab spring, but they didn’t, and have been scared of Twitter since
It’s definitely not a bank giveaway - the bank group is likely furious. They are hung with $13bn of debt, that is not sellable, and worse, has virtually no pathway to be sellable in the near future. It’s tough to figure out where this debt would be marked, but I would guess the Street has unrealized losses in the $3-5Bn range.
It’ll probably only cost him $1mm to maybe recoup $90mm. He probably thinks the payoff chance is worth the pocket change. The judge really out to hit him with a frivolous lawsuit penalty.