After buying Twitter for $44 billion, Elon Musk sold almost $4 billion in Tesla Inc. Musk sold 19.5 million shares in the company on Nov. 4-8, according to regulatory disclosures made public Tuesday, leaving him with a stake of roughly 14%. The CEO of the electric-vehicle maker company acquired the “wealthiest person” rank largely due to his stake at Tesla Inc. He sold more than $19 billion worth of stock this year. According to his statements from April & August, he was not planning on additional sales, yet it is unknown what pushed him to do so.
Musk completed the acquisition of Twitter in March. He agreed to buy the rest of the not-owned-by-him shares for $54.20. The equity financing was completely provided by Musk – totaling $33.5 billion. In addition, Twitter took on a debt of $13 billion to go private.
Pushback by Advertisers to The Transaction
As soon as Musk took over, Twitter advertisers have been in turmoil. On top of their speculation of Twitter evolving only around Musk, they’re also worried about the firings of some of Twitter’s top ad executives. The same execs who’ve been especially tight with buyers. The problem is well seen by Musk too. He already underlined the overall setback of advertising on the platform. So he is willing to create a content moderation group – intensifying the diverse culture on Twitter.
At the same time, some car companies hold back on Twitter advertising. They’re concerned their valuable information could be leaked to Tesla, one of their main competitors.
Twitter’s Implementation of The Changes so Far Since Musk’s Takeover and What’s Ahead
So far, layoffs (almost half the company’s staff) and the rising price of Twitter Blue subscriptions have been the steps Musk took to make the platform less dependent on advertising. Yet the blue check generating software failed to comply with all the users.
Twitter’s debt situation means it will have to fork out a lot of extra money (more than $1 billion) each year in interest payments. Twitter has been making an average of $700 million yearly in profits.
In addition to this year’s sales, Mr. Musk has also sold many tesla shares in the past year, which were supposed to be allocated towards taxes related to the options expiring this year.
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