He divested himself of around 4.4 million Tesla shares, raising about four billion dollars, according to documents filed with the SEC. No further sales are planned after that, he wrote on Twitter on Friday night.
Elon Musk did not give any reasons for the share sale in the documents. Last autumn, he had divested himself of more than $16 billion worth of Tesla shares – largely to pay taxes due on redeemed stock options.
Now, however, he has committed to bringing in his own funds of up to 21 billion dollars for the Twitter purchase. How exactly he intends to raise them is still unclear. Musk still holds a good 168 million Tesla shares after the recent sale. He wants to use some of them to secure a loan of 12.5 billion dollars, which will also be used to finance the Twitter deal.
The Tesla share had recently slumped – to the delight of short-sellers. Now the stock is taking off again. The reason for the upward price is probably the same as that which is driving the bitcoin price.
