Can Elon Musk arrange financing for his $44 billion takeover of Twitter?

Twitter Inc (NYSE: TWTR) is back in the red on Thursday after a Reuters report said Apollo Global and Sixth Street Partners were no longer in talks with Elon Musk to finance his $44 billion takeover deal.

Kevin O’Leary reacts to the news

Coupled with other investors, the two private equity companies had wanted to provide over $1.0 billion in financing at the time the agreement was first announced. Reacting to it on CNBC’s “Squawk Box”, Kevin O’Leary (Mr Wonderful) said:

If he doesn’t get access to the debt market, this deal isn’t going to happen. No matter what you want to litigate on, because you have to be able to finance the delta. He can’t sell all of his Tesla stuff.

Not that he expects any of that to happen. Despite the back-and-forth over the past six months, O’Leary is sticking to his confidence in the billionaire CEO of Tesla Inc.

I think this guy is Teflon man. He can obviously multitask. I’d bet on him on this deal. By the time all this stuff is over, I think he’s going to have a good outcome.

And that’s when Musk still needs another $6.0 billion in financing to follow through.

Maybe the better deal is to say give me $6.0 billion haircut on it and I’ll close. That’s not too much of a haircut.

Musk already tried to negotiate with Twitter

But that doesn’t look very likely considering the Wall Street Journal says the billionaire already held talks with Twitter to explore the possibility of trimming the price. It was after failed negotiations that he proposed to go through with the original agreement as Invezz reported here.

Twitter shares are keeping above the $50 level this week.