Elon Musk has sold about $7 billion in Tesla shares as the billionaire straightens out his finances ahead of his court battle with Twitter.
Musk disclosed in a series of regulatory filings that he unloaded about 8 million shares of his company Tesla Inc. The last days.
“In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close and some equity partners fall through, 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 rose almost 2% before the opening bell on Wednesday. Shares of Twitter Inc., up 16% in the past month with most believing Musk faces long odds of success in court, rose 3%.
Musk hit back at Twitter last week, accusing the company of fraud over its aborted $44 billion acquisition. He claimed Twitter withheld critical information and misled his team about the size of its user base.
Musk alleges that Twitter committed fraud, breach of contract and violations of securities law in Texas, where Musk lives.
Musk offered to buy Twitter earlier this year, then tried to back out of the deal claiming the social platform was infested with more “spam bots” and fake accounts than Twitter had disclosed.
Musk said in the spring that he did not plan large sales of his Tesla stock after financing to buy Twitter, but Dan Ives, an industry analyst with Wedbush, said Wednesday that “the situation has changed dramatically.”
Wedbush raised its target price for Twitter stock, “With the odds of a Twitter deal now more likely in our view and the Street seeing this poker move from Musk,” Ives wrote to clients.
“We may also see Musk trying to resolve this gunpowder situation before the Twitter deal officially goes to court in October,” Ives wrote. “At the very least, we see Twitter getting a massive settlement from Musk in the $5 billion to $10 billion range that is starting to be factored into the stock.”
