Elon Musk's Potential Twitter Acquisition Gets Help From CT Hedge Fund

STAMFORD, CT — While Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter is "temporarily on hold," according to Musk himself, he said on Friday he's still committed to acquiring the social media giant.

And according to Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filings earlier this month, Musk is getting a little help from a Connecticut hedge fund.

Cartenna Capital, a Stamford-based investment management firm located at 242 Tresser Blvd., has committed $8.5 million as an equity investor. The filings list 17 other investors.

According to Preqin, an investment data company, Cartenna Capital was founded in December 2019 by Peter Avellone, a former portfolio manager at various multi-strategy firms, including Millennium Management, Citadel and Point72 Asset Management, which was founded by Greenwich resident and New York Mets owner, Steve Cohen.

"We believe this investment represents an opportunity to support an incredible business leader at an important time for Twitter," Avellone, the firm's managing partner and chief investment officer, said through a spokesperson in an email to Patch this week.

On Friday, Musk, the chief executive officer of Tesla, said his Twitter takeover was "temporarily on hold," and that he wanted to confirm Twitter's claim that spam/fake accounts represent less than 5 percent of twitter users. Musk has said defeating spam bots will be a priority if the purchase is successful.

Reuters reported that as part of the $44 billion deal, which was agreed to late last month, Musk can ask Twitter for information on its operations to help prepare for ownership, "not to carry out due diligence and reopen negotiations."

Reuters also said that Twitter shares initially fell more than 20 percent in pre-market trading after Musk's tweet about pausing the deal Friday. The shares rebounded slightly after he said he was still committed.

According to Forbes' real-time billionaire's list, Musk is the richest man in the world with a net worth of $233.5 billion as of Friday afternoon.

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