PremiumElon Musk has said that he and his investors are obviously overpaying for Twitter, however, he added that he was excited about the acquisition of the social media giant.
He described Twitter as an asset that had "languished" for a long time. "Myself and the other investors are obviously overpaying for Twitter right now. The long term potential for Twitter in my view is an order of magnitude greater than its current value," he said.
Musk, the chief executive of Tesla, was answering a question during a call after the electric vehicle maker's quarterly report. The world's richest person is pursuing the Twitter purchase after earlier trying to back out of the $44 billion deal.
In the same conference call Musk also spoke optimistically about Tesla. Tesla, with a market cap now under $700 billion, could be worth more than the combined value of Apple Inc's $2.3 trillion and oil producer Saudi Aramco's $2.1 trillion, he said.
Musk has been trying to raise cash to fund the Twitter purchase, and some experts say he may need to sell about $3 billion more in stock after the Tesla quarterly report to do so.
A Delaware judge ordered a pause to Twitter Inc's lawsuit against Elon Musk, giving the billionaire until Oct. 28 to close the deal.
Tesla investors feared that the billionaire may sell more Tesla stocks to finance the deal and may be spreading himself too thin, pulling down shares.
Musk, CEO of SpaceX, and Neuralink and Boring Company, said on Wednesday that he does not have a current plan to combine them with Twitter under one umbrella.
Meanwhile, Tesla reported its third-quarter profit more than doubled from a year ago, fueled by higher vehicle sales.
The Austin, Texas, electric vehicle and solar panel maker posted net income of $3.29 billion from July through September.
CEO Elon Musk said on the company's quarterly conference call that the Tesla is considering a $5 billion to $10 billion stock buyback next year, even if the economy stumbles.
And Musk said Tesla's “Full Self Driving" feature won't be ready to be used without humans behind the wheel this year. But it will be ready next year "without question whatsoever in my mind."
Excluding special items, Tesla made $1.05 per share, beating Wall Street estimates of $1 per share, according to data provider FactSet. Revenue rose 56% to a record $21.45 billion, but fell just short of estimates averaging $21.98 billion.
So far this year, the company has delivered 908,573 vehicles. Last year, the company delivered just over 936,000 vehicles. To increase sales by 50% over last year, which would amount to about 1.4 million vehicles, the company would have to sell more than 490,000 vehicles in the fourth quarter.
(With inputs from Reuters)