Elon Musk, Tesla CEO, has sold 19.5 million of his shares in the electric car company, according to filings published by the US Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday, November 8th, in a transaction worth $3.95bn. The move comes just a few days after his purchase of social media platform Twitter for $44bn.
Musk, the world’s richest man, now has around 135 million Tesla shares. The sale came just a few weeks after Tesla reported $3.3bn in profit and $21.45bn in revenue for the third quarter – falling short of Wall Street expectations – which caused a 4% drop on the day. Tesla’s value has dropped 46% this year, but Musk’s net worth remains just under $200bn.
Musk has sold nearly $20bn-worth of his stock in Tesla since he initially invested in the social media platform in April. In August, before Twitter’s legal action eventually compelled Musk to buy the company, he claimed that he was done selling stock. “In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” he tweeted.
