United States: Elon Musk sold $6.9bn (£5.7bn) of shares in Tesla after admitting it would be forced to buy the social media network if it loses its legal battle with Twitter. So he may need money.
The Tesla CEO abandoned a $44 billion purchase of Twitter in July, but the company has filed a lawsuit seeking the completion of the transaction. Delaware will host a trial in October.
"It's important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock, in the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close *and* some equity partners don't come," Musk wrote in a tweet late Tuesday. .
Musk replied "yes" when asked if he ended up selling Tesla stock in other tweets on Tuesday. In addition, he announced that he would buy Tesla stock again if the Twitter deal fails.
Musk has pledged more than $30 billion of his own funds to finance the deal, with more than $7 billion coming from a group of friends and business partners, including tech tycoon Larry Ellison, the Qatar State Investment Fund and The largest cryptocurrency exchanges include Binance. in the world.
The world's richest man, Elon Musk, sold $8.5 billion worth of Tesla shares in April and previously said there were no further sales plans. But since then, legal professionals have predicted that Musk would likely sell more Tesla stock if he was forced to complete the acquisition or settle the dispute with severe fines.
Musk filed a countersuit against Twitter last week, alleging that the social media site intentionally reduced the number of spam accounts using its service. Twitter has consistently claimed that the proportion of spam accounts among its user base, which currently stands at just under 238 million, is less than 5%.
According to legal experts, Musk will struggle to convince a judge that Twitter's spam problem represents a "company content adverse effect" that undermines the value of the company and voids the agreement.
According to various filings, between August 5 and August 9, Musk sold 7.92 million Tesla shares. 155 million shares, or just under 15% of Tesla, are now owned by him.
With the most recent sale, Musk has now sold nearly $32 billion worth of Tesla stock in less than a year. With an estimated $250 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Musk is still comfortably ahead of Jeff Bezos as the world's richest man.
Since the automaker reported better-than-expected earnings on July 20, Tesla shares have risen nearly 15%. This increase has also been aided by the Biden administration's climate bill, which, if passed, would raise the cap on tax credits for electric vehicles.
Musk also hinted on Tuesday that he may be launching his own social media service. He responded with "X.com" when a Twitter user questioned him about the possibility of starting his own platform if the deal didn't work out.
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