The US Treasury Department has begun investigating Elon Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. According to the Washington Post, the Treasury assesses whether it has jurisdiction and, if so, must initiate an assessment of the purchase. But the initiative came not from the Treasury, but from Senator Chris Murphy, of the Subcommittee on Foreign Affairs. The senator sent a letter to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the US (CFIUS) on Monday (31) casting suspicion on the operation. As Senator Murphy pointed out, the purchase of Twitter did not involve just the name of Musk, but several other entities. Some of them, however, are not US companies, such as Binance, which invested around $100 million in the operation. In addition, Murphy believes that Saudi and Qatari investors are involved in the operation. According to the senator, this could have national security implications, and so Murphy asked the Treasury to review the purchase of Twitter.
US Treasury wants to investigate Twitter purchase
To raise the necessary capital and buy Twitter, Musk created a series of holding companies, companies that own equity stakes in other companies. One such NGO is Kingdom Holdings Company, which has raised $1.9 billion for the business. But the holding is owned by Prince Alwaleed bin Talal of Saudi Arabia, who is now Twitter’s second-largest shareholder. Another major investor is the Qatar Investment Authority, a sovereign wealth fund linked to the government of Qatar. CFIUS, chaired by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, has the power to block foreign ownership in major US companies. For Senator Murphy, the terms of the agreement could give foreign entities access to confidential information. However, Murphy’s biggest concern concerns control over Twitter itself. After all, these funds may want to use their power and apply censorship against platform users. This, by the way, would go against Musk’s intention to buy Twitter to turn it into “free ground”. “Let’s put aside the vast data that Twitter has collected on US citizens. Any potential for foreign ownership of Twitter to result in increased censorship, misinformation or political violence is a serious national security concern,” Murphy said. However, experts also pointed out that Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is unlikely to be impacted by a review of national security implications. This is because there are terms that grant information rights to large foreign investors. Furthermore, these review requests are basically normal and usually do not end in full investigations. Meanwhile, Elon Musk has sacked some executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, and is looking to lay off more employees after he took control of Twitter as interim CEO. Additionally, Musk has finalized the Twitter Blue subscription offer for $8 per month to US users. However, the price will be adjusted based on purchasing power parity in other countries.
Dogecoin Coming to Twitter
Elon Musk, known as a fan of Dogecoin (DOGE), previously suggested that Twitter could support the crypto-meme. However, Binance CEO Changpeng “CZ” Zhao believes that Twitter should support several cryptocurrencies, including BNB. The DOGE price is currently trading at $0.138, down 4% over the last 24 hours. However, the cryptocurrency’s appreciation topped 130% after Musk acquired Twitter.
