Elon Musk is fighting in court over the end of the agreement with Twitter. AFP photo
Billionaire Elon Musk sold shares in Tesla, his electric car maker, for nearly 7,000 million dollarsaccording to a document released on Tuesday, in the midst of a legal battle with Twitter for a $ 44 billion acquisition deal.
The carmaker’s founder sold about 7.9 million shares between August 5 and 9, according to the document posted on the US Securities and Exchange Commission website.
“In the (hopefully unlikely) case of that Twitter forces the termination of this agreement and that some equity partners do not participate is important avoid a clearance sale Tesla shares, “Musk, the richest man in the world, wrote on Twitter.
Twitter is waging a legal battle with the whimsical Musk over his attempt to get out of an April deal to buy the social network, and a judge ordered the trial to start in October.
The Twitter deal included a provision that said that if it was not successful, the party that broke the deal he had to pay $ 1,000 million for termination.
Musk filed a counter-suit in which accuses Twitter of fraud and claims that the platform betrayed him on key aspects of the company, such as the number of live accounts, before agreeing to buy it for $ 44 billion.
The Tesla boss sold about $ 8.5 billion worth of shares in the electric car maker in April as he prepared to finance the Twitter purchase. Tesla stock was up 3.4% to $ 879 in pre-market trading on Wednesday, while Twitter jumped 4.3% to $ 44.69.
Since November, Musk has lost about $ 32 billion in Tesla stock. The businessman said less than four months ago that he had no plans for further sales and has been trying to end his Twitter acquisition ever since.
“He’s making money on Twitter,” said Charu Chanana, a strategist at Saxo Capital Markets in Singapore, who believes Musk is looking to take advantage of the rally in Tesla shares, which have risen about 35% since late May.
Investors were skeptical that 51-year-old Musk had finished selling Tesla stock.
.Musk told Tesla’s shareholder meeting that any weakness in the company’s share price was a buying opportunityand 24 hours later he started selling shares himself, “said Jim Dixon, broker of Mirabaud Securities. It is highly unlikely that Musk is done, he added.
Musk, whose fortune is $ 250.2 billion, still owns about 14.8 percent of the company and is by far the largest shareholder.
With information from AFP and Bloomberg
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Source: Clarin
