Musk sells $7 billion worth of Tesla shares, citing chance of forced Twitter deal
Nickie Louise
Posted On August 10, 2022
Remember back in April when Tesla CEO Elon Musk said “no further TSLA sales planned?” New filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) now showed that Musk sold 7.92 million Tesla shares worth $6.88 billion. The transactions happened earlier this week.
Musk’s action to sell Tesla shares contradicted the statement he made just less than four months ago when he said on social media that he had “no further TSLA sales planned” after April 28.
Defending his decision to sell another shares of Tesla, Musk said the funds could be potentially used to finance a potential Twitter deal if he loses a legal battle with the social media platform.
When asked by one of his 100 million fans if he was done selling Tesla shares, Musk replied: “Yes. 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.”
Yes.
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.
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 10, 2022
Musk is currently in the midst of a contentious legal battle with Twitter after backing out of the deal to acquire the social media giant in April for about $44 billion due to spam and bot issues.
On April 25, Twitter agreed to sell the company to Elon Musk for $44 billion. Under the terms of the agreement, Twitter stockholders will receive $54.20 in cash for each share of Twitter common stock that they own upon closing the proposed transaction.
The purchase price represents a 38% premium to Twitter’s closing stock price on April 1, 2022, which was the last trading day before Mr. Musk disclosed his approximately 9% stake in Twitter. Musk needed to use his Tesla stock to raise $21 billion in equity to fund his takeover of the social media giant.
