The takeover of Twitter is apparently very expensive for Elon Musk. In the past few days, he has dumped billions of dollars in Tesla shares. Just a few months ago, he had ruled out further sales.
Tesla boss Elon Musk has sold shares worth almost four billion dollars. The Twitter new owner sold 19.5 million shares in the electric car manufacturer worth $ 3.95 billion, according to a US stock exchange announcement on Tuesday.
Musk previously sold a total of $15.4 billion worth of Tesla stock in April and August to fund the $44 billion acquisition of Twitter. For the deal, he had to put $22.4 billion out of his own pocket on the table. Musk announced in August that he would not sell any more Tesla shares.
According to calculations by the Reuters news agency, he has raised around 20 billion dollars from the sale of Tesla shares since November 2021. Where the remaining two to three billion should come from remained unclear. Musk has been suspected to have dumped more shares in electric carmaker Tesla, which he founded, between October 19, when Tesla reported its quarterly results - and when he raised the possibility of a share buyback - and Friday, by which time he had to have completed the Twitter acquisition.
After Musk took over Twitter, numerous advertisers announced that they would put their budgets on hold. That could exacerbate liquidity problems, analysts say April is due for a major debt repayment. Musk financed $13 billion for the purchase through loans. Musk wrote on Twitter on Saturday that the platform was losing $4 million every day.
