Tech

Elon Musk sells $3.95bn Tesla shares

The world’s richest man, Elon Musk, has sold $3.95 billion worth of shares in his electric-vehicle company, Tesla.

This is coming days after Musk closed the $44-billion deal for Twitter.

According to Reuters, the latest sale brings total Tesla stocks sold by Musk to about $36 billion since November last year, leaving him with a roughly 14% stake in the world’s most valuable automaker.

Musk unloaded 19.5 million shares between Friday and Tuesday, filings published by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission showed on Tuesday night.

Tesla did not immediately respond to a request for comment on the purpose of the share sale.

READ ALSO: Meta sacks over 11,000 Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp employees

Analysts had widely expected Musk to sell more Tesla shares to finance the Twitter deal even though the world’s richest man had asserted several times that he was done selling Tesla stock.

He sold $6.9 billion worth of Tesla shares in August and had amassed about $20 billion in cash through multiple stake sales from November last year to August.

This would have left him in need to raise an additional $2 billion to $3 billion to finance the Twitter deal.

The billionaire last month closed the deal with $13 billion in loans from banks and a $33.5 billion equity commitment, which included his 9.6% Twitter stake worth $4 billion and $7.1 billion from investors including Oracle Corp co-founder, Larry Ellison, and Saudi Prince, Alwaleed bin Talal.

Shares of Tesla were up by 0.7% to $192.64 in premarket trading.

The company has lost nearly half its market value ever since Musk bid for Twitter in April.

The Star

Segun Ojo

Recent Posts

Students injured in OAU classroom collapse

A yet-to-be-ascertained number of students have been injured in the collapse of the ceiling of…

5 hours ago

Emirates Airlines returns to Nigeria, begins Dubai flights Oct 1

Emirates Airlines has announced October 1, 2024, as the date to resume flight operations to…

6 hours ago

Trailer crushes 18 travellers to death at police checkpoint

No fewer than 18 travellers have been feared dead in an accident on the Umuahia-Enugu…

6 hours ago

Pathologist: Cause of Mohbad’s death unknown over failed autopsy

A pathologist, Prof. Shokunle Shoyemi, has disclosed that the cause of the death of popular…

10 hours ago

Reps probe presidential air fleet, summon NSA

The House of Representatives has resolved to investigate the failure of the presidential air fleet…

11 hours ago

Sanwo-Olu, Zulum, others seek transparent tax system to boost revenue

Lagos State Governor Babajide Sanwo-Olu and his counterparts from Sokoto and Borno States, Babagana Zulum…

11 hours ago

This website uses cookies.