Elon Musk increased his equity commitment for the Twitter acquisition to $33.5 billion, causing Twitter's after-hours stock price to rise by 5% at one point.

On May 25 Eastern Time, according to foreign media reports, a new document from the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) shows thatElon Musk has increased his total equity commitment for the Twitter acquisition to $33.5 billion. Following this news,$Twitter (Delisted) (TWTR.US)$Twitter's after-hours share price rose more than 5%, while$Tesla (TSLA.US)$Tesla's stock fell by about 1%.

According to the May 24 filing, Musk added another $6.25 billion in equity financing, bringing the total equity commitment in the $44 billion deal to $33.5 billion. Additionally, Musk is negotiating with other investors, including Twitter founder and former CEO Jack Dorsey, to help finance or roll over their shares to complete the transaction.

An earlier article on Wall Street pointed out that the previously announced acquisition agreement showed that about $13 billion of Musk’s financing would come from financial institutions like Morgan Stanley, with another $12.5 billion as a mortgage loan secured by his Tesla shares. He also committed to investing $21 billion in Twitter, sourced from his “direct or indirect” holdings. Later, Musk planned to raise funds through preferred stock financing to avoid using his Tesla shares as collateral. Sources said Musk had reached out to potential investors to solicit up to $6 billion in preferred equity financing.

Since Musk made his buyout offer on April 13, Twitter’s stock price has dropped from a high of $51.7 to close at $37.16 on Wednesday in New York trading. The stock remains below the acquisition bid of $54.20, indicating relatively low investor confidence that the deal will close at that price.

This controversial acquisition has remained contentious. At the beginning of May, an article on Wall Street noted that Musk stated the deal could not proceed unless Twitter proved that less than 5% of its accounts were fake; later, Musk initiated an “informal vote” on Twitter and called for his long-time “nemesis,” the SEC, to intervene and investigate the true number of Twitter users… causing Twitter’s stock price to plummet.

Media speculation suggested that Musk wanted to use the issue of rampant fake accounts to challenge Twitter in hopes of renegotiating the deal’s price. However, Twitter executives seemed confident, stating during a recent all-staff meeting that Musk’s potential acquisition was proceeding as expected, denying any claims that the deal had been “paused” or that the agreed-upon price of $54.20 per share would be renegotiated.

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