%20(3).png){kind=small}
![TFD [LOGO] (10).png](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/bea252_c1775b2fb69c4411abe5f0d27e15b130~mv2.png/v1/crop/x_150,y_143,w_1221,h_1193/fill/w_179,h_176,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01,enc_avif,quality_auto/TFD%20%5BLOGO%5D%20(10).png)
Musk Sells Tesla Shares Worth $8.5B To Fund Twitter Purchase
- By The Financial District
- May 1, 2022
- 2 min read
Tesla CEO Elon Musk sold $8.5 billion of the electric automaker's stock in the three days after the Twitter board agreed to sell the company to him, Chris Isidore reported for CNN Business.
Photo Insert: Musk's sales of Tesla shares were large enough to sink the company's stock price.
Musk sold 3.7 million shares of Tesla stock on Tuesday, for a total of $3.3 billion, and another 735,000 shares on Wednesday, bringing in $654 million, according to filings he made with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) late Thursday.
On Friday morning he disclosed that he had sold an additional 5.2 million shares for a total of $4.5 billion. All told, he received an average price of $883.09 per share.
The sales represent only 5.6% of the Tesla shares he held outright at the start of the day Tuesday, and less than 4% of his total holdings of Tesla if stock options he controls are included. The filings do not disclose the reason for the sale, but Musk appears to be raising funds to buy Twitter.
In a tweet Thursday evening, after the initial filings but before the disclosure of Thursday's sales, Musk said, "No further TSLA sales planned after today."
Company insiders, such as Musk, must report purchases or sales of their company's stock to the SEC to inform the broader investment community of their activity. But they have a couple of days to make that filing and still comply with the rules.
Musk's sales of Tesla shares were large enough to sink the company's stock price. The 3.7 million shares sold on Tuesday represented 17% of the normal daily trading value in Tesla shares so far this year before Tuesday.
Tesla shares lost 12.2% of their value during the course of trading Tuesday, the biggest one-day drop in the company's stock since September 2020. The stock's decline prompted a selling spree by other investors, as 45 million shares traded hands -- about twice the volume of trades from the day before.
