Amid court battles with the largest micro- blogging site Twitter, renowned billionaire Elon Musk has sold $7 billion worth of Tesla shares, legal filings revealed.
Recall that Musk had opted to buy the micro-blogging site for the sum of $44 billion buyout deal but backed out of the agreement in April after alleging that Twitter’s claims about the site were false.
It was gathered that Musk sold off 7.9 million shares in the electric carmaker between August 5 and 9, according to documents filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday.
While making clarification on the development on Tuesday evening, Musk tweeted, “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.”
Meanwhile, the judge presiding over the case has ordered the trial to begin in October.
On the other hand, the Tesla boss Musk filed a countersuit, accusing Twitter of fraud and alleging the platform misled him about key aspects of its business before he agreed to a $44 billion deal.
Musk’s latest decision comes after Musk sold around $8.5 billion worth of Tesla shares in April as he was preparing to finance the Twitter deal. He tweeted at the time: “No further TSLA sales planned after today.”
Tesla had gained 2.2 percent to $868.34 by midday Wednesday, while Twitter jumped 3.4 percent to $44.28.
Since November, Musk is said to have sold about $32 billion worth of Tesla shares.
Speculations are that Twitter purchase will go ahead in the end, Dan Ives de Wedbush Securities said.
“Musk has now sold enough TSLA stock to fund the Twitter deal which looks more likely,” he told AFP.
“This selling pressure has been an overhang on Tesla’s stock and for now the pressure is gone as the agita is gone.”
However, he explained that in an analysis that there are multiple options to the drama.
“We can also see Musk trying to resolve this powder keg situation before the Twitter deal officially heads to court in October,” Ives added.
In recent weeks, Tesla share prices have been tied to the fate of the Twitter deal, first slumping over concerns that pursuing the purchase could distract Musk and lead to unnecessary financial risk, and then rebounding when he said he wanted to abandon the takeover.
The Twitter deal included a provision that if it fell apart, the party breaking the agreement would pay a termination fee of $1 billion under certain circumstances.
Musk tops the Bloomberg Billionaires Index with a net worth of $250 billion, although he has lost $20.1 billion since the start of the year as a result of the decline in Tesla’s stock price