Musk sells Tesla shares days after Twitter deal

STORY: Elon Musk sold roughly $4 billion worth of his Tesla shares just days after closing his $44-billion deal to buy Twitter.

That's according to regulatory filings, which showed Musk unloaded 19.5 million shares between Friday and Tuesday.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a Reuters request for comment on the purpose of the share sale.

Analysts had widely expected Musk to sell more Tesla shares to finance the Twitter deal even though the world's richest man had asserted several times that he was done selling shares in the electric-vehicle maker.

According to a Reuters calculation, the latest sale brings the total shares sold by Musk to about $36 billion since November of last year, leaving him with a roughly 14% stake in the world's most valuable automaker.

Shares of Tesla have lost nearly half their market value since Musk bid for Twitter in April.

Advertisement