Elon Musk Sells $4 Billion Tesla Shares After Agreeing to Purchase Twitter, Says ‘No More Sales Planned’

Tesla CEO Elon Musk attends the start of the production at Tesla’s “Gigafactory” in Berlin on March 22, 2022. Patrick Pleul/Pool/AFP/Getty Images

Elon Musk sold nearly $4 billion worth of Tesla shares this week, just days after the billionaire agreed to purchase Twitter for $44 billion, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

According to the filings, the CEO offloaded about 4.4 million shares of the electric vehicle company for about $3.9 billion, with the majority of the share sales taking place on Tuesday and Wednesday.

Sales prices ranged between about $872 and $999 per share. The filings don’t reveal the reason behind why Musk sold his shares.

In a post on Twitter shortly after the filings were published on Thursday, Musk said: “No further TSLA sales planned after today.”

Musks offloading of Tesla shares came after Twitter’s board of directors on Monday reached an agreement on the businessman’s $44 billion offer to acquire the social media platform and take it private.

The company accepted Musk’s proposal of $54.20 per share in cash after previously resisting the offer.

Model Y cars during the opening ceremony of the new Tesla Gigafactory for electric cars in Gruenheide, Germany, on March 22, 2022. Patrick Pleul/Pool via Reuters

Musk, in a statement following the agreement, reiterated his previous comments regarding the need for Twitter to allow for freedom of speech while touting his vision for the future of the social media platform.

“Free speech is the bedrock of a functioning democracy, and Twitter is the digital town square where matters vital to the future of humanity are debated,” he said.

“I also want to make Twitter better than ever by enhancing the product with new features, making the algorithms open source to increase trust, defeating the spambots, and authenticating all humans.

“Twitter has tremendous potential—I look forward to working with the company and the community of users to unlock it,” Musk added.

However, the deal still needs to be approved by Twitter’s shareholders and regulators.

It will also require that Musk come up with some cash.

The Twitter profile of Elon Musk with more than 80 million followers is shown on a computer in Chicago on April 25, 2022. Scott Olson/Getty Images

Prior to the agreement, the billionaire confirmed last week that he had secured $46.5 billion in funding commitments to finance the takeover, including $25.5 billion in debt financing through Morgan Stanley and other financial firms, such as Bank of America, Barclays, and Mizuho.

He has also committed to providing $21 billion in equity financing.

Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan, and Allen & Co. are working as financial advisers to Twitter, while Morgan Stanley is serving as lead financial adviser to Musk.

However, Tesla shares were down 12 percent this week, closing at $877.51 Thursday amid speculation that Musk could be set to sell off another big chunk of his Tesla stake.

Others are concerned that Musk’s purchase of Twitter could ultimately prove a distraction from Tesla as he works to implement a string of updates that he believes will improve the social networking site, which could potentially see him selling his stake in the company.