Tesla boss Elon Musk has sold shares in electric car maker Tesla worth $6.9 billion. He sold about 7.92 million shares between Aug. 5 and Aug. 9, according to multiple filings.
According to calculations by Reuters, he now owns almost 15 percent of the automaker. The funds could be used to fund a possible Twitter takeover if he loses the legal battle with the social media platform, he explained.
“In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t go along with it, it’s important to avoid a fire sale of Tesla shares,” he wrote in a tweet late Tuesday night. Further sales are not planned.
With the most recent sales, Musk has sold a total of about $32 billion in Tesla stock in less than a year. Most recently, in April, he had sold Tesla shares worth $8.5 billion and said at the time that no further sales were planned.
“Wall Street will read from this poker move that the odds of a Twitter deal are now more likely,” tweeted Dan Ives, analyst at Wedbush Securities.
Musk canceled an agreement to buy Twitter for $44 billion in July. The reason he gave was that Twitter had deceived him about the number of bogus accounts on the social media platform.
