When Twitter’s board agreed to sell the company to Elon Musk last week, one Wall Street bank was at the centre of the deal: Morgan Stanley.

Its role in the $44bn bid caps a years-long effort to cultivate ties with the world’s richest person. The terms of the financing underscore the risks investment bankers are willing to shoulder in order to win lucrative clients in the technology sector.

Morgan Stanley, along with Goldman Sachs, is one of two dominant investment banks operating in Silicon Valley. Backing Musk’s bid and recruiting almost a dozen other banks to join signalled to Twitter investors the seriousness of Musk’s efforts to buy the company. To bring the deal together Morgan Stanley is extending financial firepower to Musk that goes beyond anything provided to other private clients.