The CEO of Tesla, Elon Musksold shares of the electric-vehicle maker for $8.5 billion, filings with the U.S. securities regulator showed, in transactions likely intended to help finance the Twitter purchase.
Musk said in a tweet on Thursday that there are “no further TSLA sales planned after today.” He sold about 9.6 million shares this week, according to filings Thursday and Friday, equal to 5.6% of his Tesla stake.
It was not clear if all recent sales of tesla stock by Musk. The company did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment.
The sale came after Musk closed a deal on Monday to buy Twitter for $44 billion in cash, in a transaction that will shift control of the social media platform populated by millions of users and world leaders to the richest person. of the world, which according to Forbes has a fortune of 268,000 million dollars.
As part of the deal, Musk said he would provide a $21 billion capital commitment.
It was not immediately clear how the billionaire would raise the remaining $12.5 billion in equity financing. Musk has a 43.61% stake in the rocket company SpaceXwhich is not publicly traded and is reportedly valued at $100 billion.
Tesla shares were up about 5% in morning trading on Friday. They are down about 20% since Musk revealed a more than 9% share on Twitter on April 4.
Musk has been looking for partners to reduce his equity contribution to the deal, a person familiar with the matter told Reuters, adding that it is far from certain that such a partner will emerge.
This is his first stock sale. Tesla since it divested $16.4 billion worth of securities in November and December after polling Twitter users about selling 10% of its stake in the electric carmaker.
Musk said on Twitter that he would pay more than $11 billion in taxes in 2021 due to his exercise of stock options that expire this year.
Some traders have worried this week that Musk doesn’t have enough money to fund his $21 billion cash contribution and could walk out of the deal, weighing on Twitter’s shares.
As part of the Twitter financing deal, Musk secured $13 billion in secured loan commitments against Twitter and a $12.5 billion margin loan tied to his Tesla shares.