Tesla Inc Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Elon Musk sold 4.4 million shares of the electric vehicle (EV) maker worth $3.99 billion, US securities filings showed on Thursday, in sales likely to help finance his planned purchase of Twitter.
Musk tweeted shortly after the filings were made public that he has “no further Tesla sales planned after today.” Tesla Inc lost ground on Thursday amid investor concerns that Musk may have to sell Tesla shares to fund his $21 billion equity contribution to his $44 billion buyout of Twitter Inc.
Elon Musk offloaded about 4.4 million shares on April 26 and April 27. Wall Street analysts and investors in the electric carmaker suspected that Musk may need to sell some stock to cover the $21 billion equity portion of the transaction that he’s personally guaranteed.
Musk and Twitter reached an agreement on Monday for the world’s richest man to buy the social media company. The deal was unanimously approved by the company’s board, and is expected to be completed later this year. Musk secured $25.5 billion of debt and margin loan financing and will providing about $21 billion in equity to fund the deal.
“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” Musk said in the statement on Monday. “Twitter has tremendous potential – I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it.”