TSLA Jumps 5% After Musk Reveals $8.5 Billion Stock Sales After Twitter Deal
Update (1015ET): Elon Musk disclosed an additional $4.5 billion worth of Tesla stock sales in new regulatory filings Friday, bringing his total this week to $8.5 billion in the wake of his deal to buy Twitter.
The newly revealed sales occurred between $822.68 per share and as much as $902.85 per share
As a reminder, the latest disclosures come after Musk tweeted Thursday that he has “no further Tesla sales planned after today"... which is not false since he made those sales before his tweet... on Thursday... and TSLA is trading up 5% this morning.
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In the days following the Twitter board's decision to accept his $44bn all-cash takeover bid, Elon Musk has sold 4.4 million shares of Tesla stock (worth roughly $4 billion).
Musk reported the sale in a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday.
The shares were sold over the past few days, at prices ranging from $872.02 to $999.13, were the first by the Tesla chief since a burst of selling late last year that raised more than $16bn (which were offsetting tax payments on vesting options).
Amid lots of chatter around force Tesla sales and margin calls, it appears Musk's sales were aimed at silencing fears that the deal would not go through - and would spark a spate of 'fire-sales' - as he tweeted late Thursday that: “No further TSLA sales planned after today.”
No further TSLA sales planned after today
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2022
The terms of the Twitter deal require him to come up with about $21bn in cash, though it is not expected to close for another six months.
As a reminder, Musk is paying for Twitter partly with his own cash, and the rest with a mix of a buyout loan and a loan against his Tesla stock.
Mr. Musk has a net worth of $252 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index, making him the world’s richest person.
