Musk Sells $8.5 Billion of Tesla to Fund Twitter Buy

Issue 121

Elon Musk’s acquisition of Twitter did not come without tradeoffs as the world’s richest man sold off $8.5 billion worth of Tesla stock to successfully fund his takeover of the social media company.

To fund the acquisition of Twitter, which has a total valuation of $44 billion, Musk has already committed $21 billions of his own money along with borrowing an additional $12.5 billion.  It is unclear at this point how Musk will obtain the remaining required equity, but many are suspecting he will turn to his $100 billion private company SpaceX.

Musk’s sale of Tesla stock has hurt investors as his $8.5 billion sale equated to 5.6% of his total stock.  While he remains the majority shareholder holding 15.6% of the company’s stock.  Unfortunately, the company’s stock fell sharply on Tuesday as investors predicted Musk’s massive sale resulting in additional selloff by other shareholders.  Due to the massive unloading of Tesla stock, the company’s total valuation dropped by roughly $126 billion.  On Thursday Musk announced through a tweet that there are no further Tesla sales planned.



Source: Gaurdian