Tesla chief, Elon Musk yesterday sold out about $4 billion worth of shares in the electric carmaker less than 72 hours after Twitter’s board agreed to his $44 billion takeover of the social media platform.
Africa Daily News, New York gathered that Musk sold 4.4 million Tesla shares on Tuesday as well as on Wednesday — according to information filled with the Securities and Exchange Commission which is the market regulator in the US.
Following these sales, Musk who is the world’s richest human being, holds just over 168 million shares in Tesla, via a trust.
‘No further TSLA (Tesla’s stock symbol) sales after today,’ Elon Musk tweeted on Friday morning.
Read Also: Twitter Poll: Elon Musk Offloads $5bn In Tesla Shares
Affrica Daily News, New York recalls that to raise finance for his takeover of Twitter, confirmed on Monday that Musk has pledged up to $21 billion from his personal fortune, with the rest financed by debt.
Many investors and analysts have expressed doubts over whether the deal will be completed, including questions about the financing and concerns that Twitter would distract Musk from running Tesla.
Twitter’s stock is trading at a significantly lower price than Musk’s offer of $54.20 a share. On Thursday, it closed at $49.11 on Wall Street.
The market often interprets the difference between the offer price and the value of a stock as the risk premium, the measure of risk represented by the acquisition.
Twitter released mixed first-quarter results Thursday, with revenues missing estimates but active users rising, three days after agreeing to be acquired by Elon Musk.
The micro-blogging platform reported profits of $513.3 million, more than seven times the year-ago level following a one-time gain from a divestiture.
Revenues rose 16 percent to $1.2 billion, a bit below the $1.22 billion expected by analysts.
Twitter’s count of active users rose to 229 million, a bit above analyst expectations.
The results are expected to be among Twitter’s final earnings reports following the Elon Musk deal, which is anticipated to close in 2022.
In the wake of the deal, Twitter canceled its quarterly earnings conference call with analysts.
Africa Daily News, New York
