looks like I had bad and vague info

https://www.firstpost.com/explainers/explained-how-elon-musk-got-44-billion-to-buy-twitter-11525831.html

"

Ultimately, Musk abandoned the loan idea and put up more funding in cash. The 51-year-old ended up selling around $15.5 billion worth of Tesla shares in two waves, in April and in August.

In the end, the South African-born billionaire will personally cough up a little more than $27 billion in cash in the transaction.

And importantly, Musk, who Forbes magazine says is worth around $220 billion, already owns 9.6 per cent of Twitter in market shares.

Investment funds

The total sum of the deal also includes $5.2 billion from investment groups and other large funds, including from Larry Ellison, the co-founder of software company Oracle, who wrote a $1 billion check as part of the arrangement.

Qatar Holding, which is controlled by Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund, the Qatar Investment Authority, has also tossed capital into the pot.

And Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia transferred to Musk the nearly 35 million shares he already owned.

In exchange for their investments, the contributors will become Twitter shareholders.

Loans

The rest of the money — about $13 billion worth — is backed by bank loans, including from Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, Japanese banks Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group and Mizuho, Barclays and the French banks Societe Generale and BNP Paribas.

According to documents filed with the US Securities and Exchange Commission, Morgan Stanley’s contribution alone is about $3.5 billion.

These loans are guaranteed by Twitter, and it is the company, not Musk himself, which will assume the financial responsibility to pay them back.

The California company has so far struggled to generate profit and has worked at an operating loss over the first half of 2022, meaning the debt generated in the takeover could add even more financial pressure to the social media platform’s already shaky position.

"

so the good news is that it still could take a good chunk out of some of the worst wealthy folks around, but perhaps he has insulated Tesla from the fallout a decent bit

on the other hand, stonks are just rich people feelings, so Twitter imploding will have some affect on his hype bubble

Wasn't all this buying twitter a way to get rid of Tesla stock without it crashing?

also found this analysis from before the deal was closed:

https://www.technewsworld.com/story/killing-twitter-with-tesla-as-collateral-damage-177187.html

It's pretty extremely :LIB: doing a fucking 'Bridgerton' anaolgy of the deal. But it also describes a cascading collapse scenario that is very :bloomer: vibes.

‘Bridgerton’ Analogy

Thanks to some comments on “Dancing with the Stars” this month, I was thinking about the “Bridgerton” TV series this week. It is a light drama that revolves around the old English matchmaking method.

In that framework, Musk would be the noble who decided to wed the daughter of another noble who was in financial distress, regardless of the other noble’s or daughter’s wishes. Musk then uses the threat of doing even more damage to his prospective in-laws, forcing them to agree with the union. Then he changes his mind and bad-mouths the family, especially his potential bride, to a degree where no one else will marry her.

The disparaged family takes him to task in front of the Queen, who appears to favor the bride’s family, and Musk then decides he will go through with the wedding. The Queen is happy, and the bride’s family is happy, but the bride now faces marriage with a man who doesn’t know her, has clearly decided he doesn’t want her, and will likely be abusive to her.

Think of Twitter’s rank-and-file employees as the bride. They have been vilified by their prospective new CEO, have no real say in the acquisition, and are likely a tad focused on either leaving the company or making Musk’s time at the helm a living nightmare.

There is no doubt in my mind that Musk is aware of the problem, meaning he’ll be motivated to cut very deeply. But he appears to be planning to replace the departed workers with automated technology, given his focus is on finding someone that can code to run the place for him.

While not a bad idea, the technology he needs doesn’t exist yet, meaning he won’t be able to backfill in a timely way, making it likely that Twitter could collapse due to inadequate staffing.

In short, a Bridgerton-like ending, where the two sides discover they love each other after all and live happily ever after, is unlikely.

Musk’s Other Problems

Musk is spread thinly across his companies, each of which should be enjoying the full attention of its CEO. In effect, he is more of an operational chairman of the board in that he delegates the running of his firms and just steps in when the need, or his interest, drives him.

Twitter lives off advertising revenue. In effect, it is a marketing construct. But Musk, while an expert at manipulating opinion, hasn’t shown any competence in marketing, so a business that depends on advertising revenue to survive is far removed from his skill set.

All of Musk’s other high-profile companies make money by selling products or, in the case of Starlink, services. Ad revenue-dependent companies are very different beasts because the people you serve are the firm’s product, while the customers are the advertisers who want access to them.

Advertisers typically don’t want their brands associated with activities they don’t want to be connected to, but that is the business foundation for the kind of moderation that firms like Twitter and Facebook use. They want the revenue associated with controversy, but they don’t want controversy that damages their brand or the brands of the firms that advertise with them.

Musk’s plan to open up Twitter again to those that were banned as a result of violating Twitter’s rules will create a problem for advertisers and could reduce Twitter’s related revenue precipitously.

Anticipating a Cascading Failure

Musk primarily exists under the image that, though he does crazy things, he is very successful and incredibly lucky, making it unwise to bet against him.

This is problematic if Twitter fails because it is a high-profile company, and the nature of this acquisition attempt already showcased that Musk is anything but infallible.

Should it fail, Musk’s reputation for success will take a significant hit, reduce his ability to get venture capital going forward, and potentially damage the brands of the firms he currently oversees.

Instead of giving Musk a pass, the media and individual investors will likely see Musk differently than the successful leader he and his people have worked so hard to create.

Further, if a significant number of people object to Musk’s Twitter redesign, which seems likely, Tesla sales could again take a big hit. This comes at a time when electric vehicle competition is going near vertical.