Trusting Elon Musk is risky. The richest man in the world agreed to buy Twitter for around $44 billion and backed out three months later. He sold $8.5 billion worth of Tesla stock to pay for the deal and said he had no further sales planned. But three months later, despite being out of operation, it has surprised the market by announcing the sale of another $6,900 million worth of shares.
“In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal *and* some equity partners don’t go ahead, it’s important to avoid a fire sale of Tesla stock,” he wrote. in a reply tweet to a user of the social network.
The tycoon reported the operations to the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (the SEC, for its English acronym, the Washington-based regulator of the markets). Elon Musk on Tuesday evening registered six separate communications with dozens of sales operations carried out between last Friday and this Tuesday.
In total, Musk has sold about 7.9 million shares worth about $6.9 billion. After those deals, Musk still owns 155 million shares of the electric carmaker’s stock, valued at more than $130 billion.
Tesla’s price has suffered from its founder’s selling pressure, and over those three sessions, the price has fallen 8.8% to $850 per share. So far this year, Tesla shares are down 29%.
Musk’s previous sales of Tesla shares occurred in late April. The billionaire revealed that he sold shares in automaker Tesla for an amount of around $8,500 million in the three days following the agreement to buy the social network. After sharing the first portion of those sales for about $4,000 million, Musk tweeted, “No further sales of Tesla stock planned after today,” without clarifying that he had more sales to share.
In any case, Musk hadn’t sold any more shares since then, although in truth it wasn’t a formal commitment or time horizon. The tycoon can argue that today’s sales weren’t planned back then.
wait for the process
Since that 8,500 million was not finally allocated to the operation, Musk amassed enormous liquidity, which is now increasing even further.
With these funds in his pocket, the tycoon can be prepared in case he loses his case for buying the social network. Twitter has sued Musk, demanding he honor the agreement after tearing it up, claiming the company misled the market by lying about the percentage of fake user accounts it has.
The judge in charge of the case in Wilmington (Delaware) has scheduled hearings for October 17-21. Previously, Twitter had urged its shareholders to ratify the sale agreement on September 13, although the transaction is up in the air. Musk wanted to delay the process, but the judge has preferred to expedite it given the uncertainty for investors who don’t know if the operation will go ahead.
After the Twitter trial, Musk has another trial, also in Delaware, over the multi-million dollar bonus in Tesla stock he received as compensation, which was challenged by a shareholder.
Musk’s net worth is approximately $250 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Over the past year, he has sold more than 30,000 million shares of Tesla stock, part of it to meet tax obligations on the compensation he receives in company securities.