As Elon Musk continues to try and back out of his agreement to purchase Twitter, the CEO sold almost $7 billion in Tesla stocks on Tuesday. He says the move was made to “avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock” down the line.
In new filings this week, it was revealed that Musk sold nearly eight million shares of Tesla stock, which were worth about $6.9 billion. The move came as a surprise to some, as Musk tweeted back in April that there were “no further TSLA sales planned after today,” after he sold roughly $8.4 billion worth of stocks to fund his initial deal to buy Twitter.
When asked online if he was done selling for this week, Musk confirmed so, and noted that he only sold as much as he did as a contingency plan, in the event that he’s forced to follow through on the agreement he struck with the company back in April.
“Yes. In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close *and* some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” he wrote.
At the moment, Musk is being sued by Twitter, after the Tesla CEO backed out of his $44 billion deal to buy the social media giant earlier this year. Last month, Musk announced that he was pulling out of the deal, claiming in an SEC filing that Twitter had failed to disclose information about the number of spam users and fake accounts it hosts. A Delaware judge has set a trial date for October, which Musk tried unsuccessfully to push back.
Earlier this month, Musk noted that he would still be happy to go through with the purchase, if Twitter meets more of his data demands.
“If Twitter simply provides their method of sampling 100 accounts and how they’re confirmed to be real, the deal should proceed on original terms,” Musk wrote. “However, if it turns out that their SEC filings are materially false, then it should not.”
