April 26 (Reuters) – Twitter Inc (TWTR.N) and its advisers were not sure at first how seriously to take him.

Elon Musk’s $54.20-per-share offer price for the social media company on April 14 contained the digits 420, a reference to a trope for smoking marijuana. Financing documents he submitted last week in support of his bid were signed on April 20, abbreviated as 4/20.

Such references harken back to his 2018 “funding secured” tweet stating that he was considering taking electric car maker Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) private for $420 per share. Tesla and Musk subsequently agreed to pay $20 million each to settle charges that he misled investors.

Musk said he rounded the price up to $420 because he had recently learned about the number’s significance in marijuana culture and thought his girlfriend would find it funny, “which admittedly is not a great reason to pick a price,” according to a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission complaint filed at the time.

Discussions with Twitter turned serious, however, when the San Francisco-based company’s advisers, including bankers at Goldman Sachs Group Inc (GS.N), JPMorgan Chase & Co (JPM.N) and Allen & Co, started poring through Musk’s financing documents in support of his $44 billion bid on April 21.

Many of the biggest Wall Street banks, led by Morgan Stanley (MS.N), Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) and Barclays Plc (BARC.L), committed to providing $25.5 billion in debt, some of it secured against Twitter and some of it tied to Musk’s Tesla stock. Musk himself committed another $21 billion in cash. FULL STORY HERE