Elon Musk sold roughly $3.6 billion worth of Tesla stock, or 22 million shares, between Dec. 12 and Dec. 14, according to a Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) filing released late Dec. 14. The transactions were made at a time when Tesla’s stock price fell sharply and financial troubles at Musk’s newly acquired Twitter mounted.
Tesla share price is down more than 30 percent since Musk closed his purchase of Twitter and is down 60 percent this year, erasing more than $100 billion in Musk’s net worth.
The latest Tesla stock sales are Musk’s first since early November, when he sold another nearly 20 million shares shortly after acquiring Twitter.
Tesla didn’t disclose in the SEC filing why Musk sold the shares. Before buying Twitter, the Tesla CEO rarely transacted his Tesla shares other than exercising his stock options before they would expire. He still owns about 420 million shares of Tesla stock, worth more than $67 billion.
On Dec. 13, Musk tweeted that he will “make sure Tesla shareholders benefit from Twitter long-term.”
Twitter’s financial trouble seems to be growing, despite Musk’s aggressive cost-cutting measures. The social media company is reportedly refusing to pay its office rent and employee expenses incurred under the previous management.
