The Russian investor behind Elon Musk’s financing to buy Twitter

FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk arrives at the Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York, U.S., May 2, 2022. The Tesla owner has several investors interested in his purchase of Twitter ( Reuters)
FILE PHOTO: Elon Musk arrives at the Met Gala at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City, New York, U.S., May 2, 2022. The Tesla owner has several investors interested in his purchase of Twitter ( Reuters)

The offer of Elon Musk by Twitter Inc.which has been shaken by the billionaire’s threat to retire, attracted a group of big sponsors and struts of Silicon Valley. There were some notable exceptions.

The list highlights an investment firm based in dubaiwhose assets have grown to more than $5 billion under the command of his reserved founder Alexander Tamasaccording to regulatory documents and people familiar with the matter. Vy Capital -whose main website consists of one page, without address or contact details- has pledged to put up $700 million to fund Musk’s bid by the social network, which makes it the third largest investor of foreign capital in the operation that has attracted money from the billionaire Larry Ellison and of Sequoia Capitalas shown by the stock files.

The capacity of vy to help finance one of the largest leveraged buyouts in history – if it goes ahead despite the fake account dispute – it is remarkable for a company with few public records showing its sources of funding or the nature of its investments. vywhose capital commitment for the $44 billion deal exceeded those of Brookfield Asset Management Y qatarhas also supported companies such as Boring Co. of Musk and the cryptocurrency exchange ErisXaccording to data from Pitch Book.

Tamas has a history of contacts with large investors. before creating vyworked closely with the Russian-Israeli billionaire Yuri Milner and now seems to be cultivating ties with Musk. He has also invested money in SpaceXthe rocket company of the chief of Tesla Inc. and in the brain machine maker Neuralink Corp. And according LinkedInone of the summer analysts of vy is currently benjamin birchalla son of the key adviser to Musk, Jared Birchal.

A representative of Tamas he declined to comment. During a recent visit to the firm’s office in dubai, only one assistant was present. He said the rest of the staff – about 10 in the emirate, including Tamas– works remotely. Worldwide, about 25 people work for the company, according to LinkedIn.

A 2020 document from the company Vy Global Growth say what vy It has more than $2 billion in assets under management. Those assets have since doubled and consist of a limited number of funds with about $1 billion of money to deploy, according to people familiar with the firm’s operations. The sponsors include large US foundations, said the people, who asked not to be identified because details are private.

Alexander Tamas, founder of Vy Capital (Getty)

Since March 2009 there is a Tamas Twitter account. It has the same photo as your profile LinkedIn and a header image showing figures of Lego of stormtroopers Star Wars, but has no posts. The account liked an April 21 tweet from Musk asking the social media platform to authenticate “all real humans” as part of the dispute over the bot.

Though Tamas be a stranger, your connections are not.

After working on technology deals for Goldman Sachs Group Inc. in Londonthe German citizen joined the investment company of Milner, Global DSTas a partner in 2008, where he led lucrative bets on companies such as Airbnb Inc. Y Facebook before it became Meta Platforms Inc. as well as an early investment in Twitter.

Prior to Goldmanwas a founding member of Arma Partnerswhich offers advice on corporate finance to companies and investors in the technology sector.

“human supercomputer”

Tamas and his former colleague from Goldman, Mateusz Szeszkowskithey created vy in 2013 with the vision of “invest in some of the world’s top companies and own them for decades”, according to a normative document.

Now run the background with John Heringfounder of the company software on the cloud Lookout Inc.which does not mention vy in your profile LinkedIn. Tamas Y Hering have the largest individual holdings in Vy Global Growth, according to a securities document. One of the other investors is Javier Olivanwho will become COO of Goal this autumn.

The company’s public assets have included stakes in the Canadian e-commerce platform Shopify Inc.in the audience tracker ComScore Inc.in the online lender LendingClub Corp. and in the game maker Activision Blizzard Inc., according to regulatory filings. The holdings were reportedly closed in 2018. The company has also backed private tech companies like Blockchain.com Y Reddit Inc..

His experience and investment acumen made venture capitalists Ben Horowitz Y Marc Andreessen they will nickname himMilner’s human supercomputer”. the ruler of dubaithe sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoumappointed Tamas member of an advisory board focused on the digital economy.

Defender of freedom of expression

Tamas currently resides in Europeand when it is in dubaidirect partially vy from a palatial mansion in the neighborhood of Al-Barari, an isolated suburb with luxury homes, the people said. The company also has an office in the bay of San Francisco.

Alexander Tamas and his wife, Bohdana, at a private party (Facebook Bohdana Tamas)

Apart from its investment activities, Tamas founded data science company Synaptic and supported research on artificial intelligence at the Institute of Future of Humanity of the Oxford University. He also seems to share the interest of Musk for promoting freedom of expression.

What I think is wrong is the idea that our social media platforms should govern what we can and can’t see.“, said Tamas in a 2019 interview with the Berggruen Instituteadding that allowing private companies to determine what is acceptable freedom of expression “would actually be dangerous”.

(C) Bloomberg.-

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