Musk disposed of 19.5 million shares worth $3.95 billion in the latest transactions, according to regulatory filings late Tuesday in New York. The documents didn’t indicate the sales — his first since August — were pre-planned.
Tesla shares fell less than 1% at 9:36 a.m. Wednesday in New York. The stock tumbled 46% this year through Tuesday’s close, and has lost $600 billion in market capitalization since peaking last November.The world’s richest person followed through with his takeover of the social-media platform in October, after spending months trying to get out of it. It’s not fully clear how the $44 billion deal ultimately was financed, beyond the roughly $13 billion in debt commitments by Wall Street banks.
But one thing’s clear: Twitter’s losing money and now faces annual interest payments of nearly $1.2 billion. Since Musk took over, several major companies have halted their ads on the platform, waiting to see how it evolves under the billionaire’s leadership.“It looks like Musk is preparing for things to stay bad at Twitter for the next year,” said Gene Munster of Loup Ventures after the stock sales became public. “He’s preparing for Twitter to be a money hole.
The billionaire’s drastic moves to cut costs — including firing half the staff and later asking some to come back — and overhaul of the platform’s operations have resulted in two tumultuous weeks at the social-media company, with some employees not being entirely clear on whether they are still employed there or not.
He knows Tesla is overvalued; he's cashing in.