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(Bloomberg) — Morgan Stanley (MS) launched a pivotal sale of the last bit of debt tied to Elon Musk’s buyout of social-media platform X Holdings Corp. on Thursday, according to a person familiar with the matter, taking advantage of a brief reprieve from tariff-related volatility.
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The bank is offering $1.23 billion of X debt in the form of a fixed-rate loan that carries an interest rate of 9.5% at a discounted price of 97.5 to 98 cents on the dollar, according to the person, who asked not to be identified discussing a private transaction. Commitments are due April 28.
The loan launch comes after a volatile time in markets related to sweeping tariffs that the Trump administration first unveiled on April 2. The plan initially shut down new offerings in leveraged finance, but as global trade policies — and the expected economic impacts — have shifted, banks and borrowers have begun seizing on better conditions over the past week or so to distribute debt.
For instance, on Wednesday, banks upsized a junk-debt deal supporting QXO Inc.’s acquisition of Beacon Roofing Supply Inc. after exuberant investor demand.
The sale also marks the final step of a years-long process to sell X debt to investors, after banks led by Morgan Stanley got stuck holding roughly $13 billion in financing from Musk’s 2022 purchase of what was then called Twitter Inc. Though the lenders had planned to sell it immediately after the deal closed, investors balked due to the hefty price tag and concerns that Musk’s changes to the platform’s content-moderation policies would drive away advertisers.
Sentiment changed this year, due in large part to Musk’s relationship with President Donald Trump.
The deal Morgan Stanley launched on Thursday will increase the size of an existing loan that the banks sold in February. That loan is trading close to par, according to Bloomberg-compiled data, holding up relatively well throughout the recent market volatility.
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