Elon Musk, CEO of Tesla Inc (TSLA.O), sold $8.5 billion in shares in the electric vehicle company, according to U.S. securities filings, presumably to help finance his planned acquisition of Twitter Inc. (TWTR.N).
Musk stated in a tweet on Thursday that “no additional TSLA sales are planned after today.” According to the papers on Thursday and Friday, he sold around 9.6 million shares this week, representing 5.6 percent of his holding in the firm.
It was unclear whether all of Musk’s recent Tesla share sales had been disclosed. Tesla did not immediately reply to a request for comment from Reuters.
The sale comes after Musk announced on Monday that he had agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion in cash, transferring control of the social media platform populated by millions of users and global leaders to the world’s richest person. According to Forbes, Musk’s net worth is $268 billion.
Musk stated that he would provide a $21 billion equity commitment as part of the agreement.
It was unclear how the billionaire planned to raise the remaining $12.5 billion in equity financing. Musk owns 43.61 percent of the unlisted rocket company SpaceX, which is said to be worth $100 billion.