Elon Musk's Twitter deal may be finalized this week. Here's what to expect

The latest update on Elon Musk's plan to buy Twitter is that this week could be a turning point. It may even see the deal finally sealed.

In case you don't know, Elon Musk is currently attempting to finalize his purchase of the Twitter site for $54.20 a share. He made this offer in April and even came close to getting an eight percent discount though that didn't materialize, according to Business Insider.

At the time that Elon Musk made his initial offer, his offer was well above the market value of the Twitter stock, and even Musk himself admitted he was probably "overpaying" for the platform.

But, he also believes the potential for the future of Twitter is probably worth the hefty markup.

"Although obviously 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 its current value," Elon Musk said at Tesla's earnings call earlier in October 2022.

Whatever the case, and after a series of u-turns and lawsuits, the deal is finally looking to complete sometime this week. However, there is still the matter of actually raising the necessary capital.

Elon Musk needs to raise the capital by the 28th of October

Market Insider reported on Friday that Elon Musk could be forced to sell $5 billion to $10 billion worth of Tesla stock next week. This is because he is getting ready to finish a $44 billion buyout of Twitter.

Musk already has $12.5 billion in debt financing, but he needs $32 billion more to finish the deal. He is looking for outside investors to help pay for this.

The dire state of the stock market right now makes it harder for Musk to sell investors on Twitter's potential.

Ives said, "It's pretty simple, the more investors that bail on this deal is the more money that Musk needs to contribute and therefore sell more Tesla stock."

The deal has to be done by the 28th of October, so Musk has a make-or-break week coming up. If he wants to sell any Tesla shares, it's likely to happen next week.

Ives also said that the situation for Tesla investors is "brutal" because they will have to "bear the burden" of Musk's possible stock sales.

Musk's stock sales would happen at the same time the electric car company is thinking about its first-ever stock buyback, which could cost between $5 billion and $10 billion, as was said on Wednesday's third-quarter earnings call.

But if Musk sold the same number of shares as Tesla bought back, that would seem to cancel out any buybacks.

Ives says that what makes things even worse is that Musk's plan to buy Twitter at its current price isn't a good one.

The $44 billion Twitter price tag is simply a train wreck for an asset that we peg fair value in the $30 billion range best case amid Everest-like uphill growth challenges," Ives said. Musk agrees, saying on Wednesday that he is "obviously" overpaying for the company.

According to Market Insider's report, Musk might also be set to dramatically reduce Twitter's headcount by as much as 75 percent when he takes over the company. However, this appears to be pure speculation at this point.

"Clearly, massive headcount cuts and expense controls need to take place on a leveraged $44 billion deal, and Twitter is long overdue for expense reductions given the lack of growth. However, Musk cannot cut his way to growth with Twitter and a number in the 75% zip code would be way too aggressive in our opinion out of the gates and potentially set back this core platform for years," Ives added.