Elon has a lot of equity in ownership of tsla, spacex, etc, no doubt plenty of other things. Instead of selling for cash and buying Twitter with cash, he’s taking out loans based on assets he owns.
On top of that there will probably be “imaginary money” where a bank will give him money to buy Twitter with Twitter as collateral, but not the whole thing, just part. I.e. loans against his personal capital will provide a kind of down payment for loans against the value of Twitter.
In this scale it’s called leverage, banks loaning you a multiple of assets you’re willing to risk.
It is quite common for people with extreme net worth to take loans out against assets instead of selling them.
On top of that there will probably be “imaginary money” where a bank will give him money to buy Twitter with Twitter as collateral, but not the whole thing, just part. I.e. loans against his personal capital will provide a kind of down payment for loans against the value of Twitter.
In this scale it’s called leverage, banks loaning you a multiple of assets you’re willing to risk.
It is quite common for people with extreme net worth to take loans out against assets instead of selling them.