Due to strong support for Musk, Morgan Stanley (MS.US) made a profit of over 600 million dollars in the first quarter.

Morgan Stanley (MS.US) has seen a substantial return in the first quarter of this year due to its firm support of Tesla, Inc. (TSLA.US) CEO Elon Musk. The bank reported "other" revenue in its investment banking business reaching $6.92 billion, far exceeding the $2.42 billion from the same period last year. Insiders revealed that this growth was mainly attributed to the successful sale of loans related to Musk's social media platform X. In the financial report released on Friday, Morgan Stanley stated that the revenue growth was "primarily driven by gains on the sale of held-for-sale loans," but did not specify which loans were involved. A bank spokesperson declined to provide further comment. According to the report, Morgan Stanley's net profit in the first quarter of this year reached $4.3 billion. Looking back to 2022, Morgan Stanley led the financing of $13 billion for Musk's acquisition of Twitter (now X). However, for two years, these banks struggled to find willing buyers, and the related debts nearly became a "rotten deal." Only recently, the market sentiment began to change. Musk's relationship with President Trump, the financial stability of X platform, and his stake in the AI startup company xAI gradually attracted investors who were previously hesitant or resistant. These positive factors contributed to the success of the loan sale. Throughout this process, Morgan Stanley also received continued profits from the interest payments from X, making this deal a rare "profitable unsold project." Generally, such difficult-to-sell financing often brings heavy losses to banks. In a more dramatic turn of events, Musk recently orchestrated a remarkable transaction where X was merged into xAI at a valuation approximately equal to when he completed the acquisition in 2022. The new merged entity is called XAI Holdings, with a total valuation exceeding $100 billion, and Morgan Stanley was the sole financial advisor in this transaction, providing services to both the buyer and seller.