Elon Musk sells nearly $4 billion worth of Tesla shares as they plummet in value
Rachel Lang
Featured Image Credit: David Branson / Alamy. Valerio Rosati / Alamy.
Elon Musk has offloaded USD$3.95 billion (AUD$6 billion, £3.4 billion) in shares for Tesla.
The move comes in the wake of his USD$44 billion (AUD$67.7 billion, £38.1 billion) acquisition of Twitter as well as the value of his electric car company plummeting.
According to filings made at the Securities and Exchange Commission, Musk sold 19.5 million Tesla shares, according to NBC.
Tesla shares have dropped 15.37 per cent in value over the last five days.
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The massive share sale comes only months after he shed roughly USD$7 billion (AUD$10.7billion, £6 billion) worth of shares in August.
In April he also sold over USD$8 billion (AUD$12.3 billion, £6.9 billion) worth of stock and a further USD$22 billion (AUD$33.8 billion, £19 billion) worth shares in 2021.
The major financial shake-up for the world's richest man comes as he pours billions of his own money into Twitter.
As well as pouring his own capital into the social media platform, Musk has also turned to equity partners for assistance.
This included equity investors Binance, Twitter’s former CEO Jack Dorsey and Saudi Arabia's Prince Alwaleed bin Talal bin Abdulaziz, with Musk seeking help to either finance the deal or to roll their existing Twitter shares into his holding company for the social media platform.
NBC reports that, at a conference last week, Musk told hedge fund manager Ron Baron that his 'workload went up from about, I don’t know, 78 hours a week to probably 120' after taking over Twitter.
That being said, Musk had demanded his new staff at Twitter to work 12 hour shifts and seven days a week in order to hit his aggressive deadlines or they risk losing their jobs, so at least Musk is pitching in too.
Twitter recently fired a whole swath of employees as the tech billionaire said the company was losing $4 million per day and things had to change to make the social media site more proditable.
Staff compared the layoffs to Game of Thrones' Red Wedding, so it's been a real mess over in Silicon Valley.
After being handed the keys to Twitter's head office, Musk pulled dozens of Tesla engineers to the social media app to assist him with code review and other work.
As per NBC, Musk said at the conference that 'once Twitter is set on the right path' it will be 'a much easier thing to manage' than his other companies like Tesla, Neuralink, and SpaceX.
Musk will also hand over the reins to a new CEO for the blue bird, with the billionaire suggesting his position as 'Chief Twit' and the company's sole director is a temporary solution.
Musk's massive dump of stock comes after Twitter unveiled its paid version of Twitter Blue - which will offer 'exclusive access to premium features' - at a monthly cost of $7.99.
But then again Musk was always set to ruffle feathers at the bird app.
Soon after acquiring the social networking company, Musk brought in a literal kitchen sink to signify the massive shake-up the social media platform was about to face.