Elon Musk borrowed $1 billion from SpaceX in October, about the same time as he was buying social media site Twitter.
Musk repaid the loan with interest in November, and it’s not clear exactly why he took the loan, The Wall Street Journal reported late Tuesday, citing documents it had reviewed.
Musk has long had arrangements to borrow money against the collateral of shares in the company he owns–the most valuable being electric car company
Tesla
(ticker: TSLA), which is also the basis of most of the billionaire’s wealth. The unusual thing about the loan from SpaceX, which is privately held, is that it came straight from the company.
Tesla,
SpaceX and Twitter didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment early on Wednesday.
Musk paid $44 billion for Twitter, now known as X, to take it private after months of legal wrangling in which he tried to drop his bid. He put up about $25 billion in cash for the deal. The offer he made for the company included a $1 billion break-up fee if the deal fell through.
While it didn’t affect Tesla directly, the ups and downs of the Twitter saga affected Tesla’s share price as investors wondered if he would sell stock to raise funds, or if Twitter was distracting Musk from his role at Tesla.
Tesla was trading down 0.7% in Wednesday’s premarket.
Musk isn’t the sole owner of SpaceX–he owns 42% and had almost 79% of its voting power as of March, the Journal reported. If wants to take out a loan from the company, he can.
Separately, it was reported last week that Tesla was being investigated for using company funds for a secret plan to build a glass house.
Perhaps the SpaceX loan merely illustrates that, despite being the world’s richest man, much of Elon Musk’s wealth is tied up in shares. Even he has to juggle assets to come up with cash when big bills come due.
Write to Brian Swint at [email protected]
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