A group of Morgan Stanley-led banks sold $5.5 billion of debt tied to Elon Musk’s social-media platform X after receiving stronger-than-expected demand from investors, according to people with knowledge of the matter.

Banks led by Morgan Stanley have sold $5.5 billion of some $13 billion of debt they lent to support Elon Musk's $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, now called X, in 2022, said a source with knowledge of the deal.

Banks including Morgan Stanley, Bank of America, and Barclays offered a deal to investors seeking minimum commitments in the hundreds of millions.

The Wall Street firms got stuck with US$13 billion of debt that Musk heaped on X during his surprise bid to take it private in 2022. While banks typically try to resell debt they commit to fund an acquisition quickly, investors balked in this case after Musk upended X’s business, laid off staff and sparked a steep revenue decline.

Morgan Stanley was stuck with billions of dollars of unloved debt tied to Elon Musk’s controversial 2022 buyout of social-media platform Twitter Inc. It took one election and a billionaire bromance to flip the script.