Catenaa, Wednesday, April 30, 2025– Wall Street banks have finally got rid of the $13 billion debt tied to Elon Musk’s 2022 buyout of the social media platform now known as X, the Wall Street Journal reported.
Quoting sources familiar with the matter, WSJ said that investors purchased the remaining $1.2 billion in loans on Monday from a group of big banks led by Morgan Stanley that included Bank of America for roughly $0.98 on the dollar.
Accordingly, the big banks fronted roughly $13 billion in financing in 2022 when Musk bought Twitter, a social media platform he renamed X, for $44 billion, the financing included a $500 million revolving credit facility.
WSJ said those loans lost value as X struggled, and the banks weren’t able to get them off their books without taking significant losses.
Holding such debt for an extended period can be a substantial drag on banks’ regulatory capital requirements, reducing their capacity to finance new buyout deals.
In January, the group began sounding out investors about their interest in purchasing portions of the debt initially provided to Musk in 2022 to take over the social media platform now known as X.
Yahoo Finance data showed that Musk owns several private companies that may one day go public through an initial public offering, including rocket and satellite company SpaceX, which has an estimated value of $387 billion.
Banks sold a $1 billion portion of the debt that month for approximately $0.95 on the dollar.
They quickly followed that up with another sale in early February for a $5.5 billion portion at $0.98 on the dollar. Later in February, the lenders sold a larger $4.7 billion portion at par.
During the two and half years they held onto the X debt, banks did earn a steady stream of interest payments, although the amount has not been disclosed.
