The world’s richest person has now sold $$19.3 billion of Tesla stock since announcing his Twitter takeover.
Elon Musk sold 19.5 million Tesla shares for $3.9 billion (pre-tax) over three days starting on Friday November 4, according to filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission Tuesday night. That brings the total value of Tesla shares he’s sold since announcing his $44 billion hostile takeover of Twitter on April 14 to $19.3 billion (pre-tax).
The sales came as Tesla’s stock hit its lowest price in a year; on Tuesday, Tesla closed at its 52 week low of $191.30 per share. On Tuesday, Musk’s net worth closed below US$200 billion–the first time it’s done so since May 24 (and the second time since October 1, 2021.)
Musk now owns 445.6 million Tesla shares excluding options, or nearly 14% of the company. Including his exercisable options, his stake is closer to 23%. Prior to the sales, Forbes estimated Musk was worth $197.4 billion, making him the richest person in the world.
The latest sales may have been used to partially cover Musk’s remaining portion of the Twitter purchase. Forbes estimated that Musk had US$13.3 billion in cash from previous Tesla share sales (less taxes and option exercise costs), and used that to pay for part of the $44 billion Twitter purchase price. That still left him with an estimated $5.6 billion more needed to complete the purchase.
Only Musk knows for sure why he sold those shares, but maybe he’ll tweet about it.
This article was first published on forbes.com