In the three days after Elon Musk engineered a deal to buy Twitter, he sold roughly $8.5 billion worth of shares in Tesla to help fund the purchase

Musk reported the sale of 9.6 million shares in filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Thursday and Friday. The trades were made at prices ranging from $822.68 to $999.13.

On Friday, shares of Tesla Inc. were going for around $904.50.

The world’s richest man, who is the CEO of Tesla, tweeted Thursday night that he doesn't plan any further sales of the company's shares.

Twitter announced Monday that it had agreed to be purchased by Musk for $54.20 a share, or about $44 billion. Analysts said the deal could make Tesla investors nervous that Musk will be distracted by Twitter and less engaged in running the electric car company — and have to sell a large number of Tesla shares to finance the acquisition. Musk is Tesla's largest shareholder.

On Tuesday, Tesla shares closed down 12%, the biggest single-day drop since Sept. 8, 2020. The shares are up more than 3% Friday but still down 10% for the week.

Twitter shares rose to $49.72, up 1.2% but still well below the deal price.

Before Musk's deal for Twitter is completed, shareholders will have to weigh in. So will regulators in the U.S. and in countries where Twitter does business.

So far though, few hurdles are expected, despite objections from some of Twitter’s own employees and from users who worry about Musk’s stance on free speech and what it might mean for harassment and hate speech on the platform.

Updated on April 29, 2022, at 12:17 p.m. ET, with additional sales registered with SEC.

Share:
More In Business
Klarna shares jump 30% on Wall Street debut
Swedish buy now, pay later company Klarna is making its highly anticipated public debut on the New York Stock Exchange Wednesday, the latest in a run of high-profile initial public offerings this year. The offering priced at $40 Tuesday, above the forecasted range of $35 to $37 a share, valuing the company at more than $15 billion. The valuation easily makes Klarna one of the biggest IPOs so far in 2025, which has been one of the busier years for companies going public. Other popular IPOs so far this year include the design software company Figma and Circle Internet Group, which issues the USDC stablecoin..
Musk loses crown as world’s richest to software giant Larry Ellison
Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison wrested the title of the world’s richest man from longtime holder Elon Musk early Wednesday as stock in his software giant rocketed more than a third in a stunning few minutes of trading. That is according to wealth tracker Bloomberg. A college dropout, the 81-year-old Ellison is now worth $393 billion, Bloomberg says, several billion more than Musk, who had been the world’s richest for four years. The switch in the ranking came after a blockbuster earnings report from Oracle. Forbes still has Musk as the richest, however, valuing his private businesses much higher.
Load More