Elon Musk Sells Tesla Shares Worth $7 billion To Buy Twitter
TECH DIGEST– According to six regulatory filings with the US Securities and Exchange Commission made public on Tuesday, Elon Musk sold 7.92 million Tesla shares for $6.9 million. They happened between August 5 and August 9.Instead of taking a chance on a sale at a lesser price should the merger go through, the Tesla CEO advised him to sell the stock now to raise money in case he was required to purchase Twitter.
READ ALSO: WhatsApp Unveils New Privacy Features Including Screenshot Blocking
Read Also:
“In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close *and* some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” Musktweeted late Tuesday after his latest Tesla share sale was made public. He replied “Yes” to questions from followers on whether he was done selling and if he would buy Tesla shares again if the Twitter deal doesn’t go through.
Due to Musk’s $44 billion acquisition of the social networking site, which was made public in April, the two parties are embroiled in a legal dispute. As his offer was predicated on Twitter’s SEC filing being correct, Musk stated in May that he was placing the transaction “on hold” until Twitter demonstrated that less than 5% of its accounts were false. Less than 5% of the accounts on Twitter, according to a May 2 SEC filing, were false.
Prior to the disclosure of the documents pertaining to Musk’s most recent share sale, Tesla shares on Tuesday closed 2.44% lower at $850 per share. Since Musk first announced he would buy Twitter, they have lost 29% of their value, or about 12%.
