Twitter chief Elon Musk to buy Silicon Valley Bank after collapse

Twitter chief Elon Musk on March 11 said he is open to the idea of buying the collapsed Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) and turning it into a digital bank.

Musk said while responding to a tweet by Min-Liang Tan, co-founder and CEO of Razer who tweeted, ''I think Twitter should buy SVB and become a digital bank''.

Replying to Min-Liang Tan's tweet, Musk replied, '' I'm open to the idea''.

On March 10, United States (US) regulators shut down SVB and took control of its customers' deposits in the biggest US bank failure since 2008.

As per a BBC report, the US regulators took this step as SVB was trying to collect funds to cushion losses from asset sales hit by higher interest rates.

''SVB faced 'insufficient liquidity and bankruptcy', media reports quoted the banking regulator as saying.

SVB was the 16th largest bank in America and it had total assets of $209 billion and $175.4 billion in deposits. Additionally, it had a big share in the tech industry. Now, investors have become more cautious amidst rising interest rates in the US.

As per reports, many of the bank's clients had started withdrawing their money, so that they could meet their liquidity requirements.

In such a situation, the bank had announced to raise a $1.75 billion fund this week to strengthen its capital position, after which questions were raised about its financial health. Shares of SVB Financial Group, the parent company of this bank, had fallen by 70 per cent and due to this, the trading of the bank's shares was stopped on Nasdaq.