Elon Musk has sold 7.92 million shares in Tesla, which made him about $6.88 billion richer, even though earlier this year, Musk said he had no plans for selling more Tesla stock.
CNBC reported that when asked by Tesla fans whether he had more stock selling plans, Musk said, in a tweet response, "Yes. 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."
The report recalled that Musk had once already sold a batch of Tesla shares in April this year and had said it had no further stock sale plans.
Musk bid for Twitter earlier this year, but he later pulled back on the deal claiming that Twitter's management had refused to supply him with information about how big a portion of the platform's users are bots.
In response, Twitter sued Musk to enforce the acquisition, which had a price tag of $44 billion. The company dismissed Musk's claim about bot numbers and attributed it to buyer remorse. The trial begins in October.
Meanwhile, Musk has also said he will buy back Tesla stock if the Twitter acquisition does not go through.
Reuters calculates that the Tesla CEO owns a little over 155 million shares in the company to date. The ones sold so far this year have generated revenue of $32 billion.
Tesla's stock has benefited from better-than-expected second-quarter results and will benefit some more from the climate bill that the Senate just passed as it envisages more incentives for EV carmakers. Following the Q2 results release, Tesla has gained 15 percent.
Meanwhile, Musk is saying he might set up his own social media platform, to be called X.com, according to yet another tweet exchange with fans.
By Charles Kennedy for Oilprice.com
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