Highlight
- Elon Musk has sold nearly $7 billion in Tesla shares
- Musk is by far the largest individual shareholder in both Tesla and Twitter
- Musk accuses Twitter of fraud, breach of contract and securities law in Texas
Elon Musk has sold shares worth nearly $7 billion in Tesla as the billionaire gets its finances ahead of his court battle with Twitter. Musk disclosed in a series of regulatory filings that he offloaded nearly 8 million shares of his company, Tesla Inc., in recent days. “In the event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners don’t, it’s important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” Musk tweeted late Tuesday.
Musk is by far the largest individual shareholder in both Tesla and Twitter. Tesla shares closed up 4% at $883.07 on Wednesday. Shares of Twitter Inc. jumped 3.7% to close at $44.43, and are up 36% since July 11, with most believing Musk faces long-term odds of success in court. Musk retaliated on Twitter last week, accusing the company of fraud over his $44 billion acquisition.
He claimed that Twitter withdrew important information and misled his team about the size of its user base. Musk alleges that Twitter committed fraud, breach of contract and a securities law violation in Texas, where Musk lives. Musk offered to buy Twitter earlier this year, then tried to back away from the deal, claiming that the social platform had a large number of “spam bots” and fake accounts, which Twitter revealed.
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Musk said in the spring that he did not plan any major sale of his stake in Tesla after funding to acquire Twitter, but Dan Ives, an industry analyst at Wedbush, said Wednesday that “the situation has changed dramatically.” Has been.” Wedbush raised its target price for Twitter shares, “in our opinion now looking at the prospect of a Twitter deal and Musk’s this poker move through the Street,” Ives wrote to customers.
“We can also see that Musk is trying to resolve this powder keg situation before he officially goes to court in October,” Ives wrote. “At least, we see Twitter getting a massive settlement from Musk in the range of $5 billion to $10 billion that the stock has started to include.”
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