Elon Musk sold nearly 8 million shares of Tesla, Inc., stock earlier this month ahead of Musk’s court battle with Twitter.
The $6.9 billion stock sale took place between Aug. 5 and Aug. 9 and left Musk with a remaining 155 million Tesla shares, according to multiple filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
In response to the SEC filings, the billionaire took to social media to address the sale. “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,” Musk tweeted late Tuesday.
Over the past year, Musk has sold a total of $32 billion worth of shares. In April, Musk sold $8.5 billion following his original bid to purchase Twitter for $44 billion. This was despite claims he had “sufficient assets” for the deal. After the sale in April, Musk announced he had no further plans to sell his remaining Tesla shares.
In July, Musk filed to back out of the multibillion-dollar deal with Twitter over claims the San Francisco-based social media company had breached its contract by not providing accurate information on the total number of automated bots and fake accounts on the platform.
However, Twitter immediately filed a lawsuit against Musk in an attempt to force the deal. At the time, Twitter’s board said it was “committed to closing the transaction at the price and terms agreed upon.”
Musk is legally “accountable to his contractual obligations,” claimed Bret Taylor, chairman of Twitter’s board of directors.
Last week, Musk’s lawyers countersued Twitter, accusing the company of being “in material breach of multiple provisions.” They said the social network had held back critical information and misled Musk’s team about the true size of its user base.
Musk’s legal team was hoping a trial date would take place in 2023; however, Judge Kathaleen St. Jude McCormick, who is overseeing the case, issued the order for a five-day trial set in the Delaware Chancery Court for Oct. 17, 2022.
