Elon Musk, the CEO of Tesla, sold shares in the electric vehicle manufacturer for $6.9 billion, claiming that the money might be used to finance a prospective Twitter takeover if he loses a legal battle with the social media giant.
He wrote in a tweet late on Tuesday, “It is crucial to avoid an emergency sale of Tesla stock, in the (hopefully improbable) case that Twitter compels this deal to close *and* certain equity partners don’t come through. Early in July, Musk broke his promise to pay $44 billion to acquire Twitter.
Musk’s claim that he was deceived about the number of spam accounts on the social media platform has been dismissed by Twitter as buyer’s remorse following a decline in technology stocks. Twitter has sued Musk to compel him to finish the transaction. On October 17, the trial between the parties begins.
