The hard-fought struggle between Tesla boss Elon Musk and Twitter to take over the short message service could soon come to an end.

Musk bought himself time with a Delaware court's decision to stay the acquisition process until October 28.

By the end of October, the tycoon can now get the acquisition, which he had refrained from doing in the meantime, in a dry cloth.

But for that, even the richest man in the world has to stretch himself.

After all, he now has to raise $ 44 billion.

Musk said earlier this week that he would put up $54.20 per Twitter share, as originally announced in the April purchase agreement.

However, the financing for the deal must be in place, he added.

Both sides mistrust each other.

Because Musk had declared in July, with reference to alleged false statements by Twitter about the number of bogus accounts on the platform, that he would not complete the purchase.

Musk and Twitter then sued each other.

Now the billionaire wants to get serious.

Musk had promised to raise a total of $46.5 billion from equity and debt for the deal to pay the $44 billion price tag and the extensive costs of the transaction.

Banks including Morgan Stanley and Bank of America have pledged to lend a combined $13 billion to the deal.

Twitter is keeping a close eye on Musk

However, Twitter is keeping a close eye on Musk's fingers and, citing a bank, said on Thursday that Musk had not yet given the financial institution a binding notification that he really wanted to complete the transaction.

Musk, on the other hand, said the banks were working cooperatively to secure funding for the deal around Oct. 28.

Musk must also raise his own funds, which should be around $ 33.5 billion.

The businessman can draw on his Twitter share of 9.6 percent, which is worth around four billion dollars.

He can also draw on money from well-heeled co-investors, including Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison and a Saudi prince.

Their sum is around 7 billion dollars.

That leaves $22.4 billion, for which he will probably have to open his coffers wider.

The 51-year-old Musk is the richest person in the world with a fortune estimated by Forbes magazine at 219 billion dollars.

But most of his money is in Tesla shares, with a smaller portion in SpaceX shares.

$20 billion in cash

According to Reuters calculations, after the meltdown of his Tesla stake in November and December, as well as in April and August, Musk is sitting on around $20 billion in cash.

So there should still be two to three billion dollars left before Musk gets there.

But Musk can solve this too - because he has a few options for that.

The billionaire could divest more shares in Telsa or reduce its stake in Space X.

Another option would be to use the shares as collateral to get more loans.

Or Musk could just bring more investors on board.

Musk had emphasized in August that he did not want to part with further Tesla shares.

But since Musk has already done a few U-turns, Tesla shareholders are concerned that he might change his mind and throw shares in the electric car maker onto the market.

According to Reuters calculations, the value of his Tesla package should be around 111 billion dollars.

So Musk still has a lot of wiggle room.