“We are now gathering interest to invest in Twitter as Elon Musk plans to take it private,” Calacanis wrote in a message to raise funds for his network of high net worth individuals.
In an email to investors, Calacanis wrote that the minimum investment to participate was $250,000, adding that the total fee he charged for the deal was about $18,000. As the fund’s manager, he also demanded a 10% spread, the return on the investment.
Calacanis, a longtime friend and fan of Musk, has often expressed his support for the Tesla CEO on his podcasts, This Week in Startups and The All-In Podcast. Calacanis even appeared on “Saturday Night Live (SNL)” last year in New York, when Musk was the guest host of the show.
“#SNL rehearsal was amazing,” Calacanis tweeted.
In addition, the filing of a shareholder class-action lawsuit against Tesla and Musk recently revealed friendly text messages from Calacanis and Musk at the height of their dispute in 2018, after the CEO announced on Twitter that he was taking Tesla private. .
Calacanis asked Musk — “Are you okay? Sounds like you’ve had a stressful week.” He said in another text message that people’s perception of him was “made up.” In addition, he told Musk that he hit Tesla’s critics and short sellers.
The judge in the case concluded that Musk knowingly made false statements about the “funding security” of the Tesla going-private deal.
Musk, the world’s richest man with a net worth of more than $200 billion, has been wooing money from friends and investment groups after being agreed to buy Twitter in April. He has received more than $7 billion from groups including Oracle co-founder and Tesla director Larry Ellison, venture firms Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz and cryptocurrency platform Binance, a filing last week showed.
If Musk’s efforts to acquire Twitter are successful, he is expected to serve as the influential social network’s interim CEO. Musk has said he will allow former President Donald Trump to return to the platform, though Trump has said he will not return and will continue to speak on his own nascent social network called Truth Social.
Calacanis tweeted on May 10, local time, that while Musk “enjoys being separated from Trump,” he doesn’t think the former president should be permanently silenced. Instead, Calacanis said, he should be kicked out for a year, with a further extension if he violates the terms of service again.
For the type of fund Calacanis is raising, the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) limits the number of qualified buyers to 2,000. If he raises the minimum investment from 2,000 entities, it will be a $500 million fund.
According to the SEC, to be a qualified purchaser, an entity must have investments worth at least $5 million, and to be an accredited individual investor, one must have a net worth of more than $1 million or at least $200,000 annual income in dollars.
Musk is reportedly scheduled to speak at Calacanis’ All-In summit, which begins this weekend in Miami.
