Breaking: US Treasury To Probe Elon Musk’s Twitter Acquisition

The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday began looking into whether it has jurisdiction to investigate Elon Musk’s $44 billion Twitter acquisition. The move comes after Senator Chris Murphy of the Foreign Relations Subcommittee on Monday sent a letter to the Committee on Foreign Investment in the U.S. (CFIUS) requesting a review of the deal. He believes the involvement of non-US entities including Saudi Arabia and Qatar investors risks national security implications.

Will U.S. Treasury Investigate Elon Musk’s Twitter Acquisition?

Elon Musk established holding companies to finance Twitter’s acquisition. Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal and his Kingdom Holding Company rolled over a combined $1.9 billion for the deal, becoming the 2nd largest shareholder of Twitter. Qatar’s sovereign wealth fund Qatar Investment Authority is also the largest investor.

The CFIUS chaired by Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has the power to block foreign ownership in top U.S. companies. Senator Chris Murphy believes terms could give non-foreign entities access to confidential information, reported Washington Post on November 2.

“Setting aside the vast stores of data that Twitter has collected on American citizens. Any potential that Twitter’s foreign ownership will result in increased censorship, misinformation, or political violence is a grave national security concern.”

However, it is not clear whether Treasury’s CFIUS officials are aware of the terms granting information rights to large foreign investors. Also, these types of review requests are primarily normal and often don’t end up in full investigations. Experts have also pointed out that Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter is unlikely to be impacted by a review of national security implications.

Meanwhile, Elon Musk has fired some executives, including CEO Parag Agrawal, and looks to fire some employees after he took control over Twitter as interim CEO. Moreover, Musk has finalized to offer the Twitter Blue subscription at $8 per month to U.S. customers. However, the price will be adjusted based on purchasing power parity in other countries.

Dogecoin Coming to Twitter

Elon Musk, known as a Dogecoin fan, earlier hinted at Dogecoin (DOGE) support on Twitter. However, Binance CEO “CZ”, who also invested $500 million in the Twitter deal, believes Twitter should support multiple cryptocurrencies, not just DOGE and BNB.

Dogecoin price is currently trading at $0.138, down 4% in the past 24 hours. However, the DOGE price rallied over 130% after Elon Musk acquired Twitter.