Elon Musk fans like to claim their hero is always playing four-dimensional chess. No matter how chaotic his actions, they believe the billionaire Tesla boss has secret plans too brilliant for the rest of the world to understand. Parsing his $US44 billion ($61.4 billion) deal to take social media platform Twitter private requires a similar level of faith.

Musk has pinned his offer on the need to protect free speech. His interest was reportedly piqued by a suspension of satire account Babylon Bee (which just so happens to have published flattering jokes about Musk). It is an expensive stand to take. To facilitate the deal, he is putting up $US21 billion of equity commitments and $US12.5 billion of loans against his own Tesla stock. All for a slow growing 16-year-old company that reported a net loss of $US221 million last year.

Financial Times