SpaceX is planning to sell existing shares starting Tuesday to a select group of buyers and there is speculation Elon Musk is a seller, The Post has learned.
Musk has been trying to raise more money for his $44 billion Twitter bid and is not only having a difficult time but finding it expensive, sources close to the situation said.
The billionaire could sell SpaceX shares instead to help fund the acquisition. As of August, the Tesla tycoon owned 44 percent of the SpaceX shares, according to federal filings.
The tender offer is for existing shares and not new stock, a private placement source close to the situation told The Post.
The company controlled by Musk last raised $337 million in December at a $100 billion valuation.
This time around, the private placement source said, SpaceX is going to seek $70 a share — a 25 percent increase from its last round, after which there was a 10 to 1 stock split — equivalent to around $125 billion valuation.
Meanwhile, Musk has been scrambling to raise more money for his Twitter bid.
He is speaking to private equity firms, including Apollo Global Management and hedge funds, about raising $2 billion to $4 billion in preferred financing to replace his margin loans against Tesla, and also to replace some of the Morgan Stanley junior financing he has already arranged, a banking source said.
Tesla shares have taken a beating since Musk’s announcement to buy Twitter last month. The stock closed at $724.37 Monday — after hovering near $1,000 when the deal was announced on April 25.
Morgan Stanley has committed to loan Twitter $3 billion in junior debt to fund the buyout that could cost Twitter a very high 12 percent interest rate, the banking source said.
Musk’s tweet Friday questioning Twitter’s reporting of its user base is not going to make raising debt financing any easier, lending sources said.
“Debt will be a lot harder to sell now that he has questioned Twitter’s user base,” the banker said. “He is undermining their financials.”
On Monday afternoon, Musk said a viable deal to buy Twitter at a price lower than the $54.20 he agreed to pay April 25 wouldn’t be out of the question.
SpaceX has reportedly had several successful launches in recent months.
This year, it had 19 rocket launches — including one Friday — that placed 53 satellites for its Starlink network that provides Internet access to underserved areas of the world, including war-torn Ukraine.
Last year, there were only 31 launches.
SpaceX says it will beat NASA in reaching Mars this decade.
[Written in collaboration with other media outlets with information from the following sources]
