Elon Musk is the wealthiest person for a reason. He knows how to plan his finances. He used the situation when Tesla’s stock market price underwent a significant jump, and he sold about $7 billion of his shares in the company. The regulatory filings mark this as done yesterday, the 9th of August. Was this sale connected to the Twitter acquisition and ongoing lawsuit? Read along to find out.
The first time that the billionaire sold a big chunk of his Tesla shares was back in April. As soon as he entered the deal negotiations with Twitter he sold the shares to allegedly ‘fund’ the deal. However, now he is in a legal dispute with the social media, as he backed off from closing the deal using a pity excuse.
Elon Musk Sold Additional $7 Billion Of Tesla Shares – Is He Trying To Avoid Emergency Sale If The Court Orders For The Transaction To Close?
His backing off from the deal caused the social media to file a lawsuit against him, forcing him to close the transaction. He counter-sued and the complicated lawsuit is to start in October. The lawsuit is in a couple of months from now, however, he seems to be adding to his cash reserves since the outcome of the trial might be that he is ordered to close the transaction.
In the recent period, many multi-billion dollar businesses have faced a fall in price on the stock market. Tesla is not an exception. Nevertheless, their CEO’s ‘reckless’ behavior fueled the fall additionally. This caused the price to fall even more. Now, when Elon experienced a momentary rebound in the price he decided to sell. And most probably it is the correct move.
According to Musk, the Twitter deal can’t proceed due to the misrepresentation of the number of fake/spam accounts. It is a complete deal breaker since this number is in direct correlation with the ads on the platform. And the ads are the only way Twitter makes money. From Twitter, they were unable to prove the claimed number of 5% and this is the deal breaker.
Elon sold the Tesla shares at a price of $869 per share. This is significantly higher than the bottom they reached in May when the price was as low as $620 per share.
Elon has one of the most responsive Twitter accounts of all celebrities. He recently answered a question regarding his plans for selling more shares. Elon pledges to stop selling Tesla shares after this. According to him this last sale is a strategic move, for ‘bad days’ that he hopes will never come.
“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.” – the tweet reads.
