Binance Commits $500 Million to Elon Musk’s Acquisition of Twitter

Major crypto exchange Binance has committed US$500 million to help Elon Musk’s US$44 billion bid to acquire social media company Twitter, as revealed by a May 4 filing with the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
A ‘Small Contribution to the Cause’
Musk wasn’t alone in his multibillion-dollar acquisition of Twitter, as major investment firms and digital assets companies such as Sequoia Capital, Fidelity, Andreessen Horowitz, and now Binance backed the temporary CEO’s takeover of the social media network.
Binance was the fourth-biggest contributor with US$500 million. Binance CEO Changpeng Zhao said it was a “small contribution to the cause”:
Ellison Kicks in $1 Billion
According to the SEC filing, 18 co-investors – including Oracle co-founder and Tesla investor Larry Ellison – participated in the acquisition. Ellison delivered the largest contribution with a US$1 billion investment, while Sequoia Capital and VyCapital invested US$800 million and $700 million respectively.
On April 27, Musk officially acquired Twitter for US$44 billion, a move hailed by some and decried by others. Despite his critics, Musk has signalled that freedom of speech would be the backbone of Twitter under his stewardship.
Investors believe that Musk has all the necessary skills to turn Twitter into something better than just spam bots and constant censorship, which have badly tarnished the social media network. Andreessen Horowitz co-founder Ben Horowitz offered this glowing endorsement:
Elon is the one person we know and perhaps the only person in the world who has the courage, brilliance, and skills to fix all of these [problems] and build the public square that we all hoped for and deserve.
Ben Horowitz, co-founder, Andreessen Horowitz (Twitter)