Elon Musk's private Signal chats with famed investor Marc Andreessen show how short and sweet deal-making can be if you're a big fish

Grace Kay

September 29, 2022 at 12:47 PM·3 min read

Elon Musk and Marc AndreessenJustin Sullivan and Saul Martinez via Getty

Marc Andreessen messaged Elon Musk directly about investing in the Twitter takeover in April.
Within two weeks, Andreessen's firm had pledged $400 million to the deal.
Earlier this week, Twitter's legal team published several texts between Musk and investors amid the court battle.

Private messages between Elon Musk and billionaire investor Marc Andreessen highlight the simplicity of investing as one of Silicon Valley's top venture capitalists — especially when you're friends with the richest man in the world.

In April, Andreessen sent Musk a Signal message offering to become a co-investor in his deal to purchase Twitter for $44 billion. The message was first revealed in a court filing in Twitter's lawsuit against the billionaire as a part of its efforts to force Musk to buy the company after he tried to walk away from the deal earlier this year.

"If you are considering equity partners, my growth fund is in for $250M[illion] with no additional work required," Andreessen wrote, per a screenshot of the messages.

"Thanks! It would be great to have you as an equity partner," Musk wrote back, directing Andreessen to follow-up with his righthand man Jared Birchall.

Within two weeks, it was announced Andreessen's VC fund, Andreessen Horowitz, had agreed to invest $400 million in the Twitter takeover deal.

Spokespeople for Andreessen did not respond to a request for comment from Insider ahead of publication.

A screenshot of a Signal message between Marc Andreessen and Elon Musk.Delaware Court of Chancery

In its court filing, Twitter's legal team used the messages to accuse Musk of "destruction of evidence," pointing out the messages on the encrypted app had been set to delete after a designated period of time.

Twitter also pointed to text messages between Musk and Morgan Stanley CEO James Gorman, as well as Oracle Cofounder Larry Ellison, regarding the purchase that it said Musk's legal team did not produce for discovery.

In a response to the accusations that was filed on Thursday, Musk's legal team called the Signal message an "isolated occurrence" and published the messages between Musk and Gorman, as well as Ellison.

"The April 25 message from Mr. Andreessen that is the centerpiece of Twitter's motion — was a message sent by Andreessen to Musk, which Musk had responded by directing Andreessen to e-mail Birchall," the filing said.

Musk's legal team also pointed to Signal messages that Twitter has allegedly failed to produce, citing its deposition with Twitter founder Jack Dorsey in which he reportedly said "all of my staff, all of my team was on Signal" due to its "encryption technology" and "independence from major companies like Amazon and Meta."

Twitter appears to be building a case around some of Musk's texts. Earlier this month, the social-media company's lawyers shared a text from Musk to a Morgan Stanley banker in which the billionaire said he wanted to "slow down" the deal, saying in private texts that it wouldn't make sense to buy Twitter "if we're heading into World War 3" with Russia. The texts were sent several months before Musk officially attempted to pull out of the deal in July and were used to support Twitter's argument that the Tesla CEO wants to ditch the deal over economic concerns rather than issues with the number of users on the platform.

Meanwhile, Musk's side has argued Twitter has intentionally misled investors as to the number of authentic accounts on its site.

The five-day trial is set begin on October 17.

Read the original article on Business Insider

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