Elon Musk sold 9.6 million shares of Tesla for a value of $8.5 billion between Tuesday April 26 and Thursday April 28. This sum must be used to settle the 44 billion dollars necessary for the acquisition of Twitter.
Tesla and SpaceX, the fortune of Elon Musk
This sale had been expected since a takeover agreement was reached on April 25 with representatives of Twitter. The wealth of the world’s richest man, around $249 billion, exists mostly in the form of Tesla or SpaceX stock. Elon Musk is famous for having little liquidity, a tactic of tax optimization according to his detractors.
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According to the financing plan put in place by the billionaire, 25.5 billion dollars will come from large investment banks. $12.5 billion from loans secured on $62.5 billion of Musk’s Tesla stock, the rest is secured on Twitter.
In order to get the expected $21 billion out of Musk, a stock sale was inevitable. He had to sell 9.6 million shares, worth between $820 and $1,000. Its share in Tesla fell by 1%. He remains the biggest shareholder in the electric vehicle manufacturer with about 16% of the titles, or about 163 million shares.
Elon Musk, who prefers to be paid in shares than in salary, has long been reluctant to sell his precious Tesla shares. He was forced there between November and December 2021, to pay his taxes. He had then sold 15 million shares for 16.4 billion dollars.
How will the rest of the sum be paid?
There is a fear that the billionaire’s control over Tesla will be affected. the wall street journal recalls that, unlike Meta or Alphabet, there are not several categories of Tesla titles, which would provide more weight to its founder. On April 28, Elon Musk assured on Twitter that more “ no further TSLA sales are expected after today “.
No further TSLA sales planned after today
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) April 29, 2022
The origin of the funds to complete the 8.5 billion dollars recovered in the operation has not yet been disclosed. Elon Musk owns about 43% of SpaceX, according to Securities and Exchange Commission documents from August 2021. It is possible that the situation has evolved in the meantime. The space business is valued at $100 billion.
The operation is approaching its conclusion every day. It still needs to be accepted by regulators and Twitter shareholders. If the latter refuse, Elon Musk will still have to offload a billion dollars in compensation. Same rate if he fails to raise the promised sum.