The world's richest man and Tesla CEO, Elon Musk has sold $6.9 billion worth of Tesla stock, profiting from a recent increase in the stock price of the manufacturer of electric vehicles and after acknowledging that he might require the money if he loses his legal battle with Twitter and is forced to acquire the social media network.
Twitter filed a lawsuit asking that Musk finish the $44 billion purchase of Twitter that he abandoned in July.
A trial is scheduled for October in Delaware.
“In the (hopefully unlikely) event that Twitter forces this deal to close *and* some equity partners don’t come through, it is important to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock,” Musk said in a tweet late on Tuesday.
Musk responded "yes" when asked if he had finished selling Tesla stock in other tweets on Tuesday.
In addition, he declared that if the Twitter agreement falls through, he would repurchase Tesla stock.
Musk has pledged more than $30 billion of his own funds to the deal's funding, with more than $7 billion coming from a group of friends and business partners that includes computer magnate Larry Ellison, the Qatar state investment fund, and Binance, the largest cryptocurrency exchange in the world.
The world's richest man, Elon Musk, sold $8.5 billion worth of Tesla shares in April and had previously stated that no more sales were planned.
But since then, legal professionals have predicted that Musk would certainly sell more Tesla stock if he were forced to complete the acquisition or resolve the case with a severe fine.
Musk filed a countersuit against Twitter last week, alleging that the social media site intentionally undercounted the number of spam accounts utilising its service.
Twitter has constantly claimed that the proportion of spam accounts within its user base, which is currently slightly under 238 million, is less than 5%.
Legal professionals have predicted that Musk will struggle to persuade a judge that Twitter's spam problem constitutes a "company material adverse effect" that materially modifies the firm's worth and so nullifies the acquisition.
Between August 5 and August 9, according to many filings, Musk sold 7.92 million Tesla shares. He currently holds 155 million Tesla shares, or slightly under 15% of the electric vehicle manufacturer.
The most recent sales increase Musk's total Tesla stock sales, which in less than a year have reached roughly $32 billion.
But with an estimated $250 billion fortune, according to the Bloomberg billionaires index, Musk continues to be the world's richest man, easily ahead of Jeff Bezos.
Since the company posted better-than-expected earnings on July 20, Tesla shares have increased by almost 15%.
This increase has also been aided by the Biden administration's climate bill, which, if implemented, would raise the maximum on tax credits for electric vehicles.
On Tuesday, Musk also hinted that he would launch his own social media service.
He responded with "X.com" after a Twitter user questioned him about the possibility of starting his own platform if the sale didn't go through.
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