A technology fund run by Cathie Wood was a co-investor in Elon Musk’s pricey deal to take Twitter private — and now it’s attempting to unload its stake within the struggling social network to retail investors, The Post has learned.
Cathie Wood — a outstanding Tesla bull and Musk ally — is partnering with Titan, an investment app that allows retail investors buy into private corporations, to sell individual shares in her ARK Enterprise Fund, which incorporates a basket of personal corporations including Twitter, in response to an email reviewed by The Post.
“Retail investors can’t just buy the stock in the marketplace anymore,” Titan’s investor relations chief John DeYonker wrote of Twitter, which Musk acquired last month for $44 billion. “However the ARK Invest team was in a position to negotiate with him for a bit of the corporate before delisting it.”
Some investors who got the pitch had a special take, guessing that Wood’s bid to sell retail investors a bit of her Twitter investment — a deal which Elon Musk himself admits he overpaid for — is just a strategy to clear a nasty deal from her books.
“ARK was silly enough to take a position in Elon’s deal and now they’re attempting to get retail to purchase in,” an individual with knowledge of Wood’s investment told The Post.
In the e-mail, Titan lists “pros” of the deal as “Twitter desires to be the digital town square….which may very well be lucrative” and “Elon is a daring and visionary thinker… whose ideas should reinvigorate the business.”
Titan lists the one “con” as “Many corporations are competing for limited attention within the social media/content space.”
Titan is like stock and crypto investing app Robinhood, but as a substitute allows users to purchase into unregulated investments like private corporations that are typically only accessible to “accredited investors” with a high net price or specific training.
But one source with knowledge of the deal told The Post it’s “just disgraceful” that anyone would “attempt to jam Twitter down the throats of retail.”
“These individuals are attempting to scam retail into overpaying for Twitter after Elon admitted he’s overpaying,” one insider told The Post.
The letter concludes by telling retail investors that prestigious enterprise capital firms like Sequoia and a16z are also a part of the deal. One source with knowledge told The Post that a16z, which is a key investor in Titan, helped broker the cope with Cathie Wood which now lets investors buy into her fund of personal ventures.
ARK Invest didn’t reply to a request for comment. Reps for Titan and a16z also didn’t comment.
“People bought something dumb and now they’re attempting to pawn it off on even dumber money … and the dumber money is retail,” one indie told The Post.
Wood defended her investment on CNBC on Wednesday, saying is betting on Musk and believes he can turn the social media company right into a “super app.”