Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, April 29: Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla Inc, sold $4 billion worth of the electric vehicle maker’s stock on Thursday, according to US securities filings, likely to help fund his planned acquisition of Twitter Inc.
After selling the shares, Musk said in a tweet that there are ‘no further TSLA sales planned after today.’
No further TSLA sales planned after today
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2022
According to the documents, he sold 4.4 million shares on Tuesday and Wednesday, representing 2.6 percent of his holding in the company.
The sale comes after Musk said on Monday that he had agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion in cash, a deal that will give the world’s richest person control of the social media network used by millions of people and world leaders. According to Forbes, Musk’s net worth is $268 billion.
Musk stated that he will contribute a $21 billion equity investment as part of the purchase.
It’s unclear how he’ll pay for the $17 billion in stock financing that remains. Musk owns a 43.61 percent ownership in SpaceX, a $100 billion rocket company that isn’t publicly traded.
According to the reports, Musk has been looking for partners to lower his equity stake to the deal, but that such a partner is unlikely to emerge.
This is his first Tesla stock transaction after offloading $16.4 billion in shares in November and December after polling Twitter followers about selling 10% of his ownership in the electric car manufacturer.
Musk reportedly took out a $12.5 billion margin debt connected to his Tesla equity as part of the Twitter deal. He’d already taken out a loan against around half of his Tesla stock.