Lagatar24 Desk
New Delhi, Nov 9: More than a week after completing his $44 billion acquisition of Twitter, Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold roughly $4 billion worth of shares in the electric vehicle manufacturer, according to SEC papers released on Tuesday.
Musk has been pressing for ways to pay for the significant transaction, for which he incurred enormous debt and earlier sold shares of Tesla worth $15.5 billion.
He sold more than 19 million additional shares on Tuesday, according to filings submitted to the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and valued at more than $3.9 billion.
In late October, Musk took over Twitter and ousted its top executives following a protracted back-and-forth between the influential social media firm and the richest man in the world.
After his unsolicited offer was approved in April, the billionaire attempted to withdraw from the agreement at first. He claimed in July that he was terminating the agreement because Twitter had misled him about the prevalence of fake “bot” accounts; however, the claim was denied by the business.
Twitter filed a lawsuit to enforce the terms of the agreement against Musk after the businessman sought to cancel the sale. A trial was approaching, so he resurrected his takeover scheme.
As part of an organisational restructuring led by its new owner, Twitter laid off half of its 7,500-person workforce on Friday. Following the revelation of the firings, Jack Dorsey, who co-founded Twitter in 2006 and left his position as CEO last year, posted an apology for developing the platform too quickly.
After the acquisition, Musk has been looking for methods for the social networking site to generate income. One proposal is to charge users $8 per month for verified accounts.
