Elon Musk got $1 billion from Larry Ellison for his Twitter takeover

Illustration by Kristen Radtke / The Verge; Getty Images

According to CNBC, Musk has secured $7.1 billion in new financing for his takeover of Twitter, with this round of funding coming from a group of sometimes. Larry Ellison, the co-founder and current CTO of Oracle, is committing $1 billion to the purchase.

Ellison has said that he is very close to Musk and that he was added to the board of the company. He is one of the richest people in the world and has an estimated net worth of over $100 billion. The entire Hawaiian island of Lanai was bought by Ellison in 2012 for $500 million.

The new investors include the venture capital firm, the financial firm, and the state investment firm of Qatar.

Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal agreed to remain invested in the company after the deal closes. As the merger closes, his stake in the company will be invested into a private company.

Last week, Musk reached an agreement to take the company private. The new funding allows Musk to commit less of his own wealth to the deal, which may be important for him since much of that money is tied up inTesla stock.

The acquisition is expected to close later this year. Musk has so far offered vague and sometimes lofty details about how he will change the company. He wants the platform to be a place for free speech, though it is not clear what that means in practice.

Musk has said that buying Twitter is not a way to make money, but he is also reported to be considering job cuts and charging businesses and governments to use the platform.