Elon Musk sold an additional $3.5 billion in Tesla stock, according to a form filed today with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Since November 2021, the peak of Tesla’s share price, Musk has sold more than $39 billion worth of shares, The Wall Street Journal reports.
Musk, who recently lost the title of the world’s richest man, last filed a statement with the SEC on the sale of Tesla stock in November, when he sold $3.4 billion. Before that, he sold $8.4 billion in April and $6.9 billion (nice) in August. He said he finished selling twice, once in April and once in August.
Musk blasted his social media site, Twitter, after closing the deal to acquire the company on Oct. 28. Advertisers have fled the company, and in November visits to Twitter’s ad manager fell 85 percent from the previous year. The Wall Street Journal reported. In its last year as a public company, 89 percent of Twitter’s revenue came from advertising. Twitter has stopped paying rent for some of its office space and stiffened travel salespeople. The troubled company has already suffered several employee layoffs.
Twitter will have to pay about $1 billion a year in debt as part of the buyout, and some of the banks that made the loans are preparing to post losses on that debt this quarter. One way for Musk to avoid ugliness is to personally pay Twitter’s debt.
Musk has often tapped into his fandom by using his Twitter account to garner private investors. He’s courted those investors — and in 2018 introduced ways for them to ask questions during his earnings calls. At the end of the day, shares of Tesla closed at $156.80, which The Wall Street Journal says is the lowest level in more than two years.
