Tesla CEO Elon Musk has sold more than $3.5 billion worth of Tesla stock this week in his second round of sales since purchasing Twitter. In early November, Musk sold $4 billion worth of Tesla shares. In a post that may explain the sale, Musk stated: “At risk of stating obvious, beware of debt in turbulent macroeconomic conditions, especially when Fed keeps raising rates.”
The Wall Street Journal reports that Tesla CEO Elon Musk has reportedly sold more than $3.5 billion worth of Tesla stock this week, marking his second round of sales since his purchase of the social media site Twitter.
Elon Musk Photographer: Daniel Acker/Bloomberg via Getty Images
Musk sold almost 22 million Tesla shares over a three-day period ending on December 14 according to a regulatory disclosure made public on Wednesday. The latest round of sales means that the Tesla CEO has sold more than $39 billion in Tesla shares since the peak of the company’s stock in November 2021. Since that all-time high, Tesla has lost more than $700 billion in market capitalization. Musk sold $4 billion worth of Tesla stock in November after the deal to buy Twitter closed.
It is unclear what prompted Musk’s latest stock sale, however, he did tweet earlier this week: “At risk of stating obvious, beware of debt in turbulent macroeconomic conditions, especially when Fed keeps raising rates.”
Musk’s Twitter deal was valued at $44 billion in October and has resulted in a major upheaval at the company, with over half of the firm’s workforce being fired and Musk now discussing not paying severance to fired employees. It was also recently reported that Twitter is no longer paying rent for its San Francisco HQ.
As part of the acquisition deal, Twitter took on approximately $13 billion in debt, which could leave the firm owing annual interest payments of over $1 billion, according to analyst estimates. In 2021, Twitter’s loan interest was around $51 million.
The cost of the Twitter deal and Tesla’s declining value has resulted in major hits to Musk’s personal wealth, which has declined by over $100 billion to around $160 billion, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Earlier this week, Musk lost the title of the world’s richest person to European mogul Bernard Arnault.
Read more at the Wall Street Journal here.
Lucas Nolan is a reporter for Breitbart News covering issues of free speech and online censorship. Follow him on Twitter @LucasNolan
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