Elon Musk offloads $4 billion in Tesla shares after Twitter takeover bid

Elon Musk has offloaded about $4 billion worth of his shares in Tesla after his $44 billion takeover of social media giant Twitter this week.

Filings with the the US Securities and Exchange Commission reveal a number of trades made on Tuesday and Wednesday in which the Tesla and SpaceX billionaire sold 4.4 million shares in the electric car company.

READ MORE: Tesla boss Elon Musk buys Twitter in $44 billion deal

Following the move, Tesla shares dipped from $995.43 at the start of the day on Tuesday to $876.42 at closing, with a total dip of 13.5 percent over the past five days.

After the filings became public on Thursday evening, Musk noted on Twitter that he had “no further TSLA (Tesla) sales planned after today”.

Twitter users were quick to note their unhappiness with the move highlighting a tweet from 2013 when Musk noted that: “Just as my money was the first in [Tesla], it will be the last out.”

Musk nor Tesla has publicly divulged how the proceeds of these share sales are planned to be used, nor whether more shares were sold beyond April 27, with those records not yet public.

The billionaire’s Twitter buyout bid – taking the platform private at $54.20 per share, totalling $44 billion – has been approved by the company, but is pending shareholder and regulatory approvals.

To place the bid, Musk secured $25.5 billion of committed debt. CNBC notes $12.5 billion of that was in loans against his Tesla stock. But he needs to provide $21 billion in equity.

Should Musk fail to secure enough funding to complete the takeover, he will owe $1 billion as a deal termination fee. Alternatively, Twitter would owe him the same amount if it were to accept a competing offer or if shareholder approval did not pass.

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