Elon Musk, who recently lost his title as the world’s richest man, sold about 22 million additional Tesla shares worth around $3.6 billion according to regulatory filings Wednesday, December 14.
The transactions took place between Monday and Wednesday this week, according to the regulatory filings with America’s Securities and Exchange Commission.
Musk had earlier sold $8.4 billion worth of Tesla shares in April and an additional $6.9 billion worth of shares in August.
Interestingly, the latest sale is coming months after Musk told his Twitter followers that he had no plans to sell any more shares after the offload in April.
Why he changed his mind: Musk resumed his Tesla shares offloads after agreeing to buy Twitter in a deal worth $44 billion. The acquisition was finalised in late October and Musk had immediately appointed himself as CEO of the social media company.
After taking over Twitter, Musk told employees there that he sold Tesla shares to “save” their business.
Twitter will have to pay about $1 billion a year in debt as part of the buyout, and some of the banks that made the loans are preparing to book losses on that debt this quarter. One way for Musk to avoid ugliness is to personally pay Twitter’s debt.
Declining Tesla shares: Meanwhile, Tesla shares have been declining this year, sliding even further since Musk was ‘forced’ to buy Twitter.
According to the Wall Street Journal, Tesla shares closed down 2.6% on Wednesday at $156.80, dropping the company’s market capitalization to $495 billion. Tesla shares were down 55% year-to-date as of Wednesday’s close. According to Wall Street this has been the lowest since November 2020, the latest slide dragged the company’s market value below $500 billion.
