November 8 (Reuters) – Tesla Inc (TSLA.O) CEO Elon Musk has sold $3.95 billion worth of shares in the electric vehicle maker, according to U.S. regulatory filings, days after finalizing his purchase of Twitter Inc for $44 billion.
Musk, whose net worth fell below $200 billion after investors sold Tesla shares, unloaded 19.5 million shares between Friday and Tuesday, according to documents released by the Securities and Exchange Commission. the United States.
The latest stock sale leaves Musk with a roughly 14% stake in Tesla, according to a Reuters calculation.
The purpose of the sale was not disclosed.
The latest sell dump comes as analysts widely expected Musk to sell additional Tesla shares to fund the Twitter deal.
Musk, the world’s richest man, claimed in April that he was done selling Tesla stock. Still, he went on to sell another $6.9 billion worth of Tesla stock in August and said the sale was made to pay the social media platform.
Musk, the world’s richest man, had about $20 billion in cash after selling part of his Tesla stake, including sales made last year. That would have required it to raise an additional $2 billion to $3 billion to fund the takeover, according to a Reuters calculation.
Tesla has lost nearly half of its market value and Musk’s net worth has plummeted by $70 billion since he made a Twitter bid in April.
Twitter and Tesla did not immediately respond to requests for comment from Reuters.
Musk took over Twitter last month and took drastic action, including laying off half the staff and a billing plan for blue verification marks.
The billionaire pledged to provide $46.5 billion in equity and debt financing for the acquisition, which covered the $44 billion price tag and closing costs. Banks including Morgan Stanley (MS.N) and Bank of America Corp (BAC.N) have pledged to provide $13 billion in debt financing.
Musk’s $33.5 billion equity commitment included his 9.6% stake in Twitter, worth $4 billion, and the $7.1 billion he had secured from equity investors, including Oracle Corp (ORCL.N) co-founder Larry Ellison and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal.
Musk had tried to pull out of the deal in May, alleging Twitter had underestimated the number of bot and spam accounts on the platform. This led to a series of lawsuits between the two parties.
Reporting by Akriti Sharma in Bengaluru and Hyunjoo Jin in San Francisco; Editing by Sherry Jacob-Phillips
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