Elon Musk disclosed he had dumped another $3.95bn worth of his Tesla shares on Tuesday, taking his total sales to nearly $20bn since he launched his $44bn takeover bid for Twitter earlier this year.
The purpose of the latest sales, which took place between Friday and Tuesday, according to a regulatory filing, was not disclosed. But concerns Musk would need to sell a large block of Tesla stock to finance his Twitter purchase has hung over the electric carmaker’s share price for much of this year. Tesla shares have fallen 52 per cent from their peak a year ago, and are down 42 per cent since the billionaire disclosed his offer for the social media site in April.
The Tesla chief executive appeared to claim he had sufficient funds to complete the Twitter deal after an initial sale of $8.5bn worth of the carmaker’s stock in April. At the time, he tweeted: “No further TSLA sales planned after today.”