12:31 pm, August 10, 2022
Elon Musk has sold another 7.92m shares in Tesla as his lawsuit with Twitter looms.
Regulatory findings show the multi-billionaire sold the shares – which are worth around £5.7bn – after Tesla’s annual shareholder meeting last week.
Musk said he needs the cash just in case he has to buy Twitter for $44bn (£36bn).
He’s currently in a legal battle with the social media giant after declaring his intention to withdraw his offer to buy it.
Responding to a tweet asking if he had finished selling shares in the carmaker, he said: ‘Yes. 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.’
In another tweet, Musk admitted that he would buy Tesla shares again if the Twitter deal did not go through.
Earlier this week, the Tesla founder said his planned takeover of Twitter should move forward if it can confirm some details about how it measures whether user accounts are ‘spam bots’ or real people.
Twitter is suing him for trying to pull out of the deal.
Musk has countersued, accusing the social media platform of misleading his team about the true size of its user base and other problems he said were tantamount to fraud and breach of contract.
