The debts, no (they simply remain in the acquired company).
And for the repurchase of shares, there is not necessarily a need to do it in real money, it can be done by exchanging shares.
It can allow a company to absorb a larger company.
For example, let's say Musk wants to take control of nVidia. He can do this by proposing to absorb nVidia into Tesla. To pay nVidia shareholders, rather than giving them money, Tesla would for example issue 4 new shares for each current Tesla share, and nVidia shareholders would receive all these new shares in proportion to their share in the capital of nVidia. nVidia. nVidia shareholders would be winners in the operation, since they would own 80% of the Tesla + nVidia merger, whereas today nVidia represents 75% of the cumulative capitalization of Tesla + nVidia (that therefore amounts to paying a premium of 6.7% for nVidia shareholders, while Tesla shareholders would lose 20% (their 25% of nVidia + Tesla becomes 20%).
Well, the consequence of such an operation is on the other hand that the shareholders of nVidia would become the shareholders of Tesla, with a much greater weight than the former shareholders of Tesla. And for example Musk who wanted to increase Tesla's stake to 25%, it would drop to 5% after the operation.
But Musk could still become the boss of nVidia.
And pushing even a little further, the new shares could be shares without voting rights, which means that Tesla shareholders would retain 100% of the voting rights. Or other combinations, for example shares with 1/2 or 1/10th voting rights.
In short, there are possibilities.
But it still wouldn't be simple, particularly since it would have to be accepted by Tesla's shareholders, who are suffering a loss, and it wouldn't necessarily be viewed favorably by the competition control authorities.
These are rare operations, but it has happened in the past that a company absorbs a larger one via such a mechanism.
