Musk Sells $6.8 Billion Of Tesla Shares, Ahead Of Twitter Deal

Tesla shares have risen about 35% from this year's lows

Making the biggest billionaire sale record, Elon Musk offloaded $6.9 billion of stock in Tesla Inc, saying he wanted to avoid a last-minute selloff of the electric-car maker's shares in the event he is forced to go ahead with his aborted deal to buy Twitter Inc.

Tesla owner sold about 7.92 million shares on August 5, according to a series of regulatory filings that landed after US markets closed Tuesday.

Taking notes from the speculations over the sale, Tesla CEO Musk responded in a series of late-night tweets, saying he wanted to avert an emergency sale of stock if he is compelled to complete the $44 billion takeover of Twitter, which he walked away from last month.

Asked by followers if he was done selling Tesla shares and would buy the stock again if the deal doesn't close, Musk responded: “Yes.”

Just after 4 months of the Twitter deal tussle, the sale was done,  the world's richest person, said he had no further plans to sell shares in the carmaker he's built into a global force after disposing of $8.5 billion of stock in the wake of his initial offer to buy Twitter.

After that, Tesla's shares rebounded from lows reached in May, benefiting from broader gains in US equities.

“He certainly is clarifying that he is cashing up for Twitter,” said Charu Chanana, strategist at Saxo Capital Markets Pte in Singapore.

“The timing of the sale -- just ahead of the US CPI release -- does say something though. The bear market rally has started to falter, and further repricing of Fed expectations could mean more pain for equities ahead, especially in tech.”

As per a report, Tesla shares have risen about 35% from this year's lows, though are still down about 20% this year.

Tesla's market fortunes have been tied to those of the Twitter deal since Musk made his surprise overture earlier this year.

The billionaire last month said he was terminating the agreement to buy the social network where he has more than 102 million followers and take it private, claiming Twitter has made “misleading representations” over the number of spam bots on the service.

Since Twitter has sued to force Musk to consummate the deal, a trial in the Delaware Chancery Court has been set for October.

In May, Musk dropped plans to partially fund the purchase with a margin loan tied to his Tesla stake and increased the size of the equity component to $33.5 billion.