Amidst the ongoing legal battle with Twitter regarding the $44 billion deal, Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold $6.9 billion worth of his shares in the electric vehicle maker, saying that the funds could be used to finance a potential Twitter deal if he loses a legal battle with the social media platform.?
As per the Twitter deal, Elon Musk would have to pay a massive penalty of $1 billion upon backing out of the deal.
Hinting at the reason for his latest Tesla shares sale, Musk said in a tweet yesterday "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."
Musk¡¯s sale of about 7.92 million Tesla shares worth around $6.9 billion was revealed as part of a series of financial filings published yesterday night.
His transactions occurred between August 5th and 9th, the SEC filings revealed, following Tesla¡¯s 2022 annual shareholder meeting on Aug. 4th in Austin, Texas, as per CNBC report.
This share sale by Musk comes even after the Tesla CEO had mentioned earlier in April 2022 that he had ¡°no further Tesla share sales planned¡±.
In early July, Elon Musk had cancelled his agreement to buy Twitter for $44 billion. Twitter has sued Musk to force him to complete the transaction, dismissing his claim that he was misled about the number of spam accounts on the social media platform as buyer's remorse in the wake of a plunge in technology stocks. The two sides head to trial on Oct. 17.
In other comments on Twitter on Tuesday, Musk said "yes" when asked if he would buy Tesla stock again if the Twitter deal does not close.
Yesterday, Musk also teased that he could start his own social media platform.?When asked by a Twitter user if he had thought about creating his own platform if the deal didn't close, he replied: "X.com"
As per Reuters report, world's richest person Elon Musk had sold $8.5 billion worth of Tesla shares in April 2022.
And after this latest sale of shares, Musk reportedly now owns 155.04 million Tesla shares or just under 15% of the EV maker.
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