Elon Musk has to keep banks, investors on board in Twitter purchase: experts

Earlier this week, Elon Musk reversed course and said he'd go through with acquiring Twitter under the same terms he agreed to in April.

If the squabbling ever stops over Elon Musk’s renewed bid to buy Twitter, experts say he still faces a huge obstacle to closing the US$44 billion deal: Keeping his financing in place.

Earlier this week, Musk reversed course and said he’d go through with acquiring the social media company under the same terms he agreed to in April. But after months of tweetstorms and legal barbs, there are scars and suspicions on both sides.

Experts say that behind the scenes, banks could be scrambling to find buyers for US$12.5 billion in debt from the deal, and Musk is trying to hold together a group of equity investors that is pitching in billions more. The erratic billionaire is on the hook for the rest.

The fighting continued Thursday, when Musk’s attorneys said Twitter is refusing to accept his revived bid to buy the company. They sought to delay an upcoming trial on Twitter’s lawsuit that could force him to complete the deal.

But Twitter’s attorneys said it’s Musk who is holding everything up, and his effort to put the trial on hold “is an invitation to further mischief and delay.”

In the end, a judge agreed to give Musk more time to close the deal but said the trial will go ahead in November if he doesn’t.

It’s still possible the sale could close. But with so much at play, here’s what could throw the deal off track, again:

A group of banks, including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America, signed on to loan US$12.5 billion of the money Musk needs for the deal. In Thursday’s court motion, Musk alleges that Twitter doesn’t want to set the lawsuit aside because of a “baseless” fear that Musk could fail to get the bank financing.