As billionaire Elon Musk devises his apparent plan to buy Twitter, he has made cryptic tweets a part of his routine.
In the latest example, Musk invoked the title of a classic novel to seemingly hint at his next move.
“_______ is the Night,” Musk wrote on Tuesday.
_______ is the Night
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 20, 2022
While there are multiple words that could fit in this blank, one of the first ones to come to mind is “tender.” After all, F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Tender Is the Night” is one of the best-known novels in American history.
Given the recent developments in Musk’s quest to buy Twitter and take it private, this tweet is particularly interesting.
Musk has offered to buy all of Twitter for $54.20 per share. The total cost of this bid would be $43 billion.
According to the New York Post, Musk is willing to invest between $10 and $15 billion of his own money in the bid. The rest of the funds would have to come from co-investors.
Musk is aiming to get investors to join him in “a complex deal that raises debt against both the company and possibly [Musk’s] own stock, as well as a giant cash equity infusion from co-investors,” the Post reported.
He hopes to raise around $20 billion from co-investors to launch a tender offer directly to Twitter shareholders. Investopedia defines a tender offer as “a bid to purchase some or all of shareholders’ stock in a corporation.”
Such an offer would usually be a public invitation for shareholders “to sell their shares for a specified price and within a particular window of time” that would be “at a premium to the market price and is often contingent upon a minimum or a maximum number of shares sold.”
Under this plan, Musk would not own all of Twitter himself. In fact, the combined stake of the co-investors together would likely outweigh Musk’s own stake.
With that said, Musk would be the largest single shareholder in the company, meaning he would still have the most pull.
Just a few days before Tuesday’s tweet, Musk used Elvis Presley’s 1956 track “Love Me Tender” to hint at his possible next steps in a separate tweet.
🎶 Love Me Tender 🎶
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 16, 2022
Musk is both powerful and thoughtful, and he understands the effect simple tweets like these can have. For example, Netflix’s shares on the stock market dropped 35 percent on Wednesday morning after Musk criticized the company on Twitter on Tuesday.
There are not many people who can drastically affect the stock market with one-sentence tweets, but the richest man in the world is probably one of them.
Musk’s words have meaning, and they may be hinting at his next move in the Twitter saga.