Musk sells almost €7bn worth of Tesla to avoid Twitter fire sale

Asked by followers if he was done selling Tesla shares and would buy the stock again if the deal doesn’t close, Musk responded: “Yes.”

Tesla’s market fortunes have been tied to those of the Twitter deal since Musk made his surprise overture earlier this year.

Elon Musk offloaded $6.9bn (€6.7bn) of stock in Tesla, the billionaire’s biggest sale on record, saying he wanted to avoid a last-minute selloff of the electric-car maker’s shares in the event he is forced to go ahead with his aborted deal to buy Twitter.

Tesla’s chief executive officer sold nearly eight million shares last week, according to a series of regulatory filings that landed after US markets closed Tuesday. As speculation mounted over the reason for the disposal, Musk responded in a series of late night tweets, saying he wanted to avert an emergency sale of stock if he is compelled to complete the $44bn (€43bn) takeover of Twitter, which he walked away from last month.