Elon Musk sells $4 billion worth of Tesla stock and promises there will be no future transactions

Elon Musk has sold nearly $4 billion worth of Tesla Inc. shares after striking a $44 billion deal to buy Twitter Inc. The Tesla CEO sold 4.4 million shares on April 26 and 27, according to documents released late Thursday. Wall Street analysts and investors in the electric car maker suspect Musk may need to sell stock to cover the $21 billion equity portion of the deal, for which he is personally guaranteed. Musk tweeted shortly after the documents were released that he had "no more Tesla sales planned after today."

     

The billionaire and Twitter reached a deal on Monday for the world's richest man to buy the social media company. His lawsuit raises several "one-time man risk" issues for Tesla, where Musk has been chief executive since 2008 and has long held the largest stake. Meanwhile, confirmation of its sales could upset shareholders, many of whom are retail investors.

"It's a brutal cycle for Tesla investors and it casts a shadow over the name as Musk sells more shares," said Wedbush's Dan Ives. "Twitter Deal becomes an obstacle for Tesla Stock and it fuels a hot fire." Tesla shares posted their biggest decline since September 2020 on April 26, the day Musk sold the most, and were little changed in the following two sessions, closing at $877.51 on Thursday.