By most measures, Elon Musk is the richest particular person on this planet, and he is bought extra liquid belongings at his disposal at this time. Latest regulatory filings present that Musk has bought off tens of millions of Tesla shares price billions of {dollars}. He wants these funds resulting from a questionable resolution made earlier this yr when he agreed to buy Twitter for $44 billion, an settlement he is at the moment making an attempt to void. However higher secure than sorry.
Musk’s Twitter saga started in early 2022 with the information he had secretly acquired a 9.2 % stake within the social media web site the place he has greater than 100 million followers. After rejecting a proposal to affix the Twitter board, Musk tendered a proposal to buy the corporate outright, waving due diligence within the course of. That is coming again to chew him.
A main supply of Musk’s wealth is his cache of Tesla inventory, which declined in worth after the announcement of the Twitter deal. That is additionally when he began publicly questioning the official figures for bot accounts on Twitter, which the corporate claims are round 5 %. Musk demanded entry to knowledge that would show that declare, after which claimed he was pulling out of the deal. That kicked off a court docket battle, which is at the moment scheduled to go earlier than a decide in October.
The worth of Tesla inventory has been trending upward recently. Whereas it is not again to its pre-Twitter peak, it is at almost $900 per share at this time. Musk has filed six notices with the Securities and Trade Fee (SEC) disclosing the sale of seven.9 million shares of Tesla inventory, giving him a cool $6.9 billion in money.
On Twitter, Musk claims he is performed promoting shares for now, confirming these strikes are because of the Twitter deal. The added liquidity may turn out to be useful if the court docket pressured Musk to abide by the phrases of the deal he signed, which requires him to personally pay $21 billion of the acquisition value. The remaining would come from loans and fairness companions. Whereas Musk nonetheless appears to need out of the deal, he mentioned it is vital to “keep away from an emergency sale of Tesla inventory.”
Twitter continues to be eager to promote itself to Musk, and its inventory value is rising as some have begun to suspect the events will come to an out of court docket settlement. That would imply the deal will undergo with some modifications or Musk will likely be pressured to cough up a breakup payment.
