Following the completion of the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter Inc., Tesla (NASDAQ: TSLA) owner Elon Musk sold $3.95 billion worth of shares in the electric vehicle manufacturer, regulatory documents showed.
Since last November, Musk has sold over $36 billion worth of Tesla stock, reducing his ownership interest to about 14% of the most valuable automaker in the world.
According to federal records made public on Friday and Tuesday, Musk sold 19.5 million shares. The SEC filings arrived late Tuesday.
Although the world’s richest man had previously stated that he was finished selling Tesla stock, analysts had generally expected Musk to sell further shares to finance the Twitter deal.
Between November of last year and August of this year, he sold numerous stakes totaling $6.9 billion, amassing around $20 billion in cash. He would have needed to raise an additional $2 billion to $3 billion to fund the Twitter transaction.
Last month, the billionaire completed the transaction with a total equity commitment of $33.5 billion, including his 9.6 percent stake in Twitter (worth $4 billion) and investments from individuals such as Oracle Corp (ORCL.N) co-founder Larry Ellison and Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal totaling $7.1 billion.
In the hours before the market opened, Tesla shares rose 0.7%, reaching $192.64. Since Elon Musk’s April proposal to acquire Twitter, the company’s stock price has dropped by roughly 50%.
