The Chief Executive of Tesla Inc, Elon Musk, has sold Tesla shares amounting to $6.9 billion, citing his dispute with Twitter.
Musk sold Tesla shares claiming that the money might be used to finance a prospective Twitter deal if he loses a court battle with the social media site.
Early in July, Musk backed out of his offer to pay $44 billion to acquire Twitter. Musk claimed that he was deceived about the number of spam accounts on the social media platform. However, the claim was dismissed by Twitter as buyer’s remorse following a decline in stocks. Twitter has sued Musk to compel him to finish the transaction. On October 17, the two parties will go on trial.
Elon Musk claims that his team was misled
Musk accused the San Francisco-based company of deceiving his staff about the size of its user base and other issues, which he claimed amounted to fraud and contract violations.
He currently owns 155.04 million Tesla shares, or just under 15% of the business, after selling around 7.92 million shares between August 5 and August 9.
Tesla reported better-than-expected earnings
Since the company posted better-than-expected earnings on July 20, Tesla shares have increased by almost 15%. Moreover, the Biden administration’s climate bill has also aided this increase. The bill would raise the maximum tax credits for electric vehicles if implemented.
On Tuesday, Musk hinted that he would launch his social media service. He responded with “X.com” after a Twitter user questioned him about the possibility of starting his own platform if the acquisition fell through.