Nueva York (CNN Business) — Elon Musk sold 7.9 million Tesla shares in recent days, raising $6.9 billion from the sales.
Sales for Friday through Tuesday were disclosed in a series of filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Tuesday night. They mark Musk’s first sale of Tesla shares since April, when he sold 9.6 million shares, raising $8.5 billion at the time.
Those April sales came shortly following Tesla CEO Musk struck a deal to buy Twitter for $44 billion. But a month ago he announced that he does not plan to go ahead with that deal, arguing that Twitter management failed to disclose material information regarding how many user accounts were bots and spam accounts rather than accounts run by real people. Twitter (TWTR) quickly sued to force Musk to go ahead with the deal on the terms reached in April.
Musk’s files did not reveal the reason for the stock sales. But following someone on Twitter asked him if he was done selling Tesla stock, he replied “Yes” and then pointed to the possibility of being forced to buy Twitter as the reason for this latest sale.
“In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close *and* some equity partners don’t show up, it’s important to avoid a crash sale of Tesla stock,” he said in his tweet.
But at the time he sold Tesla (TSLA) stock in April, he tweeted: “No further TSLA sales planned following today.”
Asked by someone else on Twitter Tuesday if he would buy Tesla stock once more if the Twitter deal doesn’t close, he replied “Yes.”
Shares of Tesla have lost almost 20% of their value so far this year, although they have rebounded 14% since they reported earnings in late July.
“This is the last thing Tesla investors wanted to see,” said Daniel Ives, a technology analyst at Wedbush Securities. “The biggest fear has been that Musk will sell more shares, and that’s what just happened. It’s a short-term punch in the gut. There’s no explanation and that adds to the uncertainty.”
Musk previously sold Tesla stock primarily when he needed to raise cash to pay taxes on expiring option exercises. The share sale in April, shortly following the Twitter deal was reached, was the first significant sale of Tesla shares by Musk for reasons other than an impending tax bill.
Musk received an average price of $869 a share for the shares he sold in recent days. That’s below the average price of $883 per share in his Tesla sales in April, and well below the average $1,046 he received when he sold 15.7 million shares late last year. That sale was to cover an expected record personal income tax bill that he faced as a result of exercising options that had expired.
Even with the latest stock sales, Musk owns 155 million Tesla shares and has options to buy nearly 100 million more at a fraction of current prices. The shares he owns, combined with the options he has to purchase other shares, give him control of approximately 20% of Tesla’s outstanding shares. And the 7.9 million shares he just sold represents less than 3% of the stock and options he owns.
